Sekirei Unbound
by xynonym
Summary: No OC. No OCC. Sekirei AU. Please please please review.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I did not create nor do I own Sekirei manga or anime formats. Someone else does. All rights to the characters depicted in this fan fiction belong to the creator of Sekirei... did i miss out on anything? Don't wanna get sued dont'cha know?

A few important notes about this fic. Religion. There is no Christianity, Islam, Taoism, Bhuddism nor Hinduism. Do not be offended if you have religious leanings. This is, after all a fiction.

Enjoy reading and please review after.

The ship was low on energy. There was no doubt about it. Normally, she would have energy stocks on board. But since there was a mass exodus on her world, they had to ration the crystals that powered the ship drives. Still, maybe she was over-reaching by choosing to travel to an out of the way galaxy instead of searching closer. At any rate, the closest system was a small star with 9 planets revolving around it. Of those 9, only 1 planet was hospitable. It was a blue planet. It was the third planet to orbit the small star. There was no other choice. Aramiyen changed the ship's course to rendezvous with the new world. For her, and for the remnants of her civilization, it was their new hope.

60 years ago, their own planet became uninhabitable when a far away black hole started moving close to their galaxy. They did not bother waiting for the black hole to arrive. Instead, they built ships to take them to the stars in the hopes of finding habitable worlds. Some, like her, ventured alone while others created armadas, trying to keep together in the vastness of space. But Aramiyen wasn't bothered by being alone. She preferred being alone. But she did not have that luxury anymore.

Once they reached the planet, if they reach the planet, then she would have to age the living cells in their birthing chambers to revive a portion of her civilization. She would have to watch them grow and direct them about their lives. Hopefully, they wouldn't need that much direction. Hopefully, they would become wise when they grow up. She hated having to tell other people what to do.

Aramiyen looked at the fuel sensors embedded in her control console. As far she could tell, there was only one miniscule particle of crystal fuel left. If her calculations were correct, the fuel would not last midway through the star system. Growling under her breath, Aramiyen started computing velocities and trajectories as well as viable landing scenarios until she came up with a solution. She would burn the engines at maximum power and head for the system's largest planet. Right when their fuel ran out, she would swing the ship around the planet to gather momentum; enough to take them to the blue planet. She would also direct remaining energy to shields and life support once they entered the atmosphere. They would be falling down, not flying. The ship needed all the protection it could get. Life support would take care of any inertia.

After putting in commands, she locked the ship's systems for the last time and isolated life support to the ship's medical chamber. There, she would stay with the as yet undeveloped living cells of her people.

It took several days to reach the blue planet. Soon, the ship started vibrating as it encountered the atmosphere... In only a matter of moments, the ship came to a dead stop. Inside, it was all dark. Using her memories, Aramiyen started traversing the length of the ship to a nearby hatch, eager yet nervous to see where they were. Slivers of dim light shone through as she pulled the hatch open. The crash had caused a very huge dust cloud. The shield was keeping the dust outside. Looking around, the ground nearby was crystallized; a result of the ground coming into contact with the ship's super-heated exterior. Satisfied with that initial glance, Aramiyen decided to wait for the dust to settle before she went outside. To pass the time, she took out a small computer that contained data of the scans that the ship took as they were nearing the planet. According to the records, they were projected to land on a small island above the planets equator. Surface scans of the whole planet showed several artificial structures that were pyramidial in shape. One was so huge that it could house the ship inside it many times over. There were several other artificial structures scattered around the surface of the world that differed in shape, but they were mostly gigantic. Aramiyen wondered what kind of civilization existed here; for, no matter how large the structures, there were no indications of power generation. Without power, it was just a primitive civilization. But perhaps they were lucky. It would be easy to defend themselves against primitives. Perhaps, they could even help this world along by passing on knowledge to its inhabitants. A new home and a new life. 'It certainly deserves some sort of memorial', Aramiyen thought contemplatively. A few minutes later, her lips curved into a small smile. "From now on, I will be known as Miye", she declared as loudly as she could, announcing her arrival to this new world. "Now I have to make the little kiddies grow", she grimaced in disgust.

5,000 years later...

An excerpt from a thesis entitled, "Studies on Religion – The Pantheon of the Gods"

"It is a known fact that the ancient Egyptian religion preceded that of the current world religion. However, this ancient religion was soon superseded by the gods we all worship now. Perhaps one of the most telling facts is that the ancient Egyptian gods were pictured but never seen. In comparison, our gods have been known to visit our world every 500 years.

From Yume, the goddess of light and love, to Kazehana, the goddess of romance, of the wind, food and wine, and to, Karasuba the goddess of war, deceit and destruction, our gods have many a different varieties of provinces and designations.

One curious fact is that the pantheon of gods is overrun by females. Of the male gods, only three are mentioned in history. These are, the evil fire god Homura, the enigmatic yet childlike god of death, Shiina and the god of the soil and earthquakes, Mutsu.

The pantheon is known to be ruled by the supreme goddess Miye, better known as Miya in modern times. There is not much to say about this secretive goddess save for the fact that all eyewitness accounts have described her to have long, purple hair.

It is rumoured, but not confirmed, that Karasuba is in enmity against Miye for rulership of the pantheon. However, there have been no hints at all of any confrontations between these two deities. In all historical accounts with humanity's interactions with the gods, the pantheon worked harmoniously every time they descended on humanity; which is to say, every 500 years. In all those times, the gods obeyed Miye's every command and acted accordingly.

It was rumoured in antiquity, that the gods resided on an isolated island far away from the centers of civilization. During those years, China was just only beginning to form its ruling dynasties while the Greeks were beginning to fashion bronze implements. Today, it is a known fact that the gods do indeed live on an isolated island. This island, quaintly known as the Island of the Gods, is located to the northeast of the main islands. This student spent his personal funds to form an expedition to the Island of the Gods but has failed to reach that island. An invisible force or barrier prevented his hired boat from getting any closer than 3 miles to the island's shores. Similar reports from other sea going craft as well as airborne vehicles have reported that the barrier is indeed physically tangible up to the highest points in the stratosphere and that it was impossible to go over it.

Because of this protection, many people have conjectured as to the appearance of the island; for not even modern satellite spying technology could penetrate into the island. The satellite cameras were mysteriously disabled or destroyed if they became too persistent in trying to get a glimpse of the island.

What is certain is that the world is once again preparing itself for the gods to appear. It has been 499 years since the last documented god sighting. One wonders, in this modern world, what the ancient gods can contribute. But whatever the outcome, it is certainly very exciting to have the chance of meeting those who have been watching us for over 5,000 years."

A submission by Minaka Hiroto to the Department of Religious Antiquities, Faculty of Archaeology, Tokyo University 2 August, 1995

Chapter ends.

Review please.


	2. Chapter 2

Tokyo 2020

Sahashi Minato was a genius. He was one of the top students in the all Japan High School academic scoring system. Like a typical genius, his build was slight and his personality was very much introverted. The only thing lacking to complete his clichéd appearance were a pair of glasses.

Here today, in front of the bulletin boards of Toudai, Minato finds himself scratching his head. How could he, an acknowledged genius of Japan, fail his university exams... again. On hindsight, Minato realized that the questions and problems presented during the examination were very easy to answer, He knew all of them. But in that crucial moment where it was critical for him to actually write down the correct answers to the exam questions, his genius had failed him.

He had been standing there for a few minutes now, willing his student number to somehow appear magically while praying to the goddess of knowledge and information. Surely the goddess Matsu would bestow favor upon a genius? Slouching his shoulders in dejection, Minato turned away from the results posted on the bulletin boards. Sighing he started walking away slowly. Not caring where he went. His introspection was so deep that the world did not exist for him. He had failed again, and the goddess Matsu had remained silent both times... Not that he prayed often. He prayed only when he needed something. Mostly, he prayed to the goddess Musubi; the goddess of joy and laughter. She was known to be flighty, but she always exuded happiness. He certainly needed some fun and laughter in his dull life, but even though he prayed everyday, the goddess Musubi, like the goddess Matsu, remained silent. He couldn't particularly blame them though. There were more serious problems in the world after all.

Minato sighed again. What was he gonna tell his mother? His mother had to work hard to put both him and his younger sister Yukari through school. Often times, his mother would take double shifts as a crane operator just to make ends meet. Sometimes, when he visited her at work, he saw his mother enduring and brushing aside the perverted advances of the lascivious construction workers. And what had he to show his mom for it? Nothing. It was his fault really. Twice now he had applied only to Tokyo university instead of applying to 2 or 3 schools to broaden his chances of getting accepted. But his performance in high school and cram school was very clear. He should have passed Toudai's entrance exams with flying colors to the millionth power.

So what was he gonna tell his hard-working mother? He was so ashamed of failing both himself and his mother again. Speaking of his mother, Minato did wonder why she worked as a crane operator when she had a degree in pharmacy from Tokyo University. He'd never bothered to ask her. Maybe he never would. Minato and Yukari had never known their father. He would ask his mother about that when he was young, but he was always told to think about other more important things than an absent father.

Sighing again, Minato decided to head for his place of solace, the cathedral of Musubi located near Akihabara. Perhaps it was unintentional, but the populace of Akihabara were happy with that particular cathedral's presence. The priests too were happy. They received an endless stream of visitors everyday. People prayed to the goddess Musubi for joy and laughter. Minato was one of the more frequent visitors of the pink colored cathedral.

The year before, Sahashi Takami had cut off her son's allowance. She could not afford to have a free loader in the family. As a result, Minato was forced to look for any job he could do to pay for his rent and food. Try as hard as he could, he never found any god or goddess governing the province of money. Well, maybe its because gods don't need money, but people certainly do. He certainly would have prayed to any god of money just like he prayed to Musubi everyday.

Truth to tell, Minato could have prayed to any god or goddess. There were 108 of them after all. Once, his patron goddess was the mother goddess, Miya. As he grew older, he figured that the mother goddess was too busy being god of the whole world to listen to one whiny teen ager. As he reached middle school, his bashfulness, clumsiness and lack of confidence led to him being a loner. He found life to be more and more depressing. So he started praying to the goddess of joy and laughter. The first time he stepped into the goddess' cathedral, Minato felt... content. It was as if he could find happiness here when he could not outside. Besides, he liked the pink color that coated the cathedral.

_Shift Scene_

Asama Takehito sighed and rubbed his eyes. Being a member of the faculty of biology in Tokyo University was a very demanding job. Aside from grading term papers and preparing study guides, he had to go out on field assignments to further his knowledge in his area of expertise. In several occasions, interdepartmental expeditions would occur and he would be exposed to other members of different faculties. Perhaps one of the expeditions he enjoyed the most was going out on a dig with the faculty of archaeology. The archaeologists were a big help in opening the window to explore life in the ancient world. As a result, he had formed a bond of friendship with one of the archaeology professors. Like him, Minaka Hiroto was a genius. When they were students, the three of them, together with Sahashi Takami, hired a boat to try and reach the isle of the gods. They failed of course, but it was one of the more fun days he remembered with fondness. Maybe because he fell in love with Takami. Unfortunately for him, Mianak likewise fell in love with the same woman. That woman chose Minaka.

The sad thing was how Minaka refused to marry her when she got pregnant. Takehito was witness to the tears falling down Takami's face when she resigned her position from the faculty of pharmaceutical sciences. Still being in love with Takami, he had offered her a place to stay, and hopefully, a man to love her sometime in the future as well as someone who could be a father to her child. Takami had refused him of course.

A year later, he was surprised to see Minaka and Takami going out again. Then it happened again. This time, Takehito kept his mouth shut and let Takami go her way. He had never heard from her since then. He just prayed to the goddess that Takami would find the right person one day.

Still, he kept his friendship with Minaka. Both of them understood each other and knew to what lengths each would go to achieve their ambitions. That and their steadfast belief in the gods had kept their friendship a close one.

Takehito himself prayed once a day to the mother goddess. Early on, he decided that the other gods were something like government employees who worked for the mother goddess. Deciding that he didn't want his prayers to go through bureaucratic red tape, he prayed directly to the mother goddess. He even had a large portrait of her in his home. Everyday, he would stop and gaze at the portrait of the mother goddess' features and her long purple hair. During these times, Takehito would think that he could fall in love with her if she were only human.

As far as he knew, the portrait was accurate. The picture he had was a copy of an original that was done when the gods last came out 500 years ago when the English queen Elizabeth was in her prime. As a matter of fact, several portraits for the major gods and goddesses were put into canvas during that time.

_Shift Scene_

Miya woke first from the 500 year stasis that she and her kindred had placed themselves into. At the start, 5,000 years ago, they found it very hard to integrate themselves with primitive human civilization. They decided to feed human knowledge and let it grow enough so that they could finally leave their prison of a ship and live freely with the denizens of this planet.

Unfortunately, humanity had proven to be fond of keeping written records. To the dismay of Miya and the rest, each 500 year appearance that they did made it even more apparent that they were being worshipped as gods. This was certainly something they did not want. How could they live freely as humans if they were revered as gods? Looking at the ship's information systems, it was even more startling now than 500 years ago. Before, it had been only a few isolated churches and places of worship. Now, the whole world had built chapels and cathedrals dedicated to every one of them.

Miya sighed at the complications. Five thousand years ago, things were pretty simple. It was surviving that was foremost in their minds. The first order of business was to get the ship some power crystals. With the help of their inhuman abilities, they were able to mine minerals and converted them into composites which allowed them to synthesize the power crystal needed by the ship. It wasn't as efficient, but when they fed power to the ship, the built in refinery was also powered up.

Then they had to think. They could not live among humans as humans. There was just too much of a gap in technology. This became apparent one day when the primitives they were teaching suddenly fell to their knees, genuflecting and banging their faces against the ground in a form of submissive worship. At that moment, they knew that humanity was not yet ready for them. So they decided to let 500 years pass in stasis, hoping that humanity would improve their technology enough for them to be able to live among them.

Of course, with the way things were now, the "worshipped as gods" part made integration complicated. Miya remembered, when the first church was built, their ship's chief engineer, Matsu, installed a spying device so they could see and hear what people did in those churches. Needless to say that they were appalled at how people would pray to them, wishing them well, greeting them and asking for this and that. Tsukiumi became so annoyed that she drowned a whole valley under water. The people kept calling her name, asking for water.

Miya smiled upon remembering how Homura was referred to as the evil god of fire because fire was very destructive and it killed people. Fire was even used in their cruel wars. Miya could still remember how Homura had vehemently protested against being called an "evil god", more evil than the goddess of destruction herself.

So the days passed and all of them woke up, finding themselves in the electronic age, the biggest leap in human technological advancement so far. As things were, they could live in this society. Their being gods however, made it a huge problem. Nor were they amenable to using human society's method of altering one's appearance via primitive cosmetic surgery.

Tsukiumi growled under her breath as she spied at her temples. All over the world, people prayed to her for water. She was known as Tsukiumi, the goddess of water and catastrophic floods. Her priests and worshippers talked in whispers while inside her temples and cathedrals. They knew that if they annoyed the goddess, flood water would come to sweep them away, never to be seen again.

Akizu, the goddess of cold weather, got most of her prayers from where it was too hot and from where it was too cold. People were never content.

Homura, the "evil" god of fire, received prayers mostly from people seeking revenge. Homura just scowled at the viewing monitors, very offended at how he was being perceived.

Matsu, the goddess of knowledge and information, surprisingly multiplied her worshippers a thousand fold. In the age of computers where information was valuable, Matsu's temples and cathedrals have spread like mushrooms all over the world. In her work station, a cacophony of voices could be heard from her speakers, asking her for freebies usable in the digital world. Some even prayed for the perfect hack.

Shiina, the god of death, refused to open his console. He knew what prayers he would be receiving. It was either a wish for someone else's death or a request that Shiina stay away from them.

Kusano, the child goddess of farmers, heard countless petitions asking for a good harvest.

"This is ridiculous", Uzume exclaimed. "It wasn't supposed to be this way."

"What are you complaining about? You're the goddess of beauty and weaving", Homura countered sourly.

Uzume giggled and stuck out her tongue.

"If we ever have to let them know our true nature, we will have to reveal this island to them", Miya was saying to everybody. "I don't think that's such a good idea seeing as how paranoid and selfish the world governments are."

"What's the big deal", Karasuba exclaimed exasperatedly. "If they want to treat us as gods, them let them. After all, we have the ability to do what they expect gods to do."

Miya sighed. "We've been through this over and over, Karasuba. We were not gods to begin with. We are ordinary people from where we come from", she pointed out.

"From where YOU come from", Karasuba countered. "We were born on this world. We grew up on this world. This is our home, not the one you came from. If the people here want us as their gods, then there's no problem to it is there?"

Among the command consoles, Musubi was giggling. Several of her sisters came over to look at what she was seeing. "What is it Musubi?", Yashima asked the giggling girl.

"Its this person", Musubi replied, pointing at her monitor. "He's been visiting one of my cathedral's everyday since we woke up."

"Ooohhh. He's handsome", Kazehana gushed.

"Hey! He's my worshipper", Musubi scowled.

"Hmmph! Those damned monkeys are nothing but trouble", Tsukiumi griped.

"Speak for yourself, blondie. We're living in their world. I'm sure there are some nice people out there", Uzuem taunted the glowering Tsukiumi.

"What did you say!", Tsukiumi gritted through her teeth.

"Oh? What are ya gonna do about it... miss panties?", Uzume whispered tauntingly.

"That's enough", Miya said quietly, but effectively shutting them up." You're not children anymore whose nappies have to be changed. Or do you want some punishment?"

A trembling Uzume immediately faced Miya and replied, "No Miya... that's not necessary."

"We... were just dis... discussing things", Tsukiumi added defensively.

"That's good", Miya smiled sweetly. "Now get back to work!", she said with a crackling voice. "We still need to plan on handling this... this 'god' situation."

Later that night, when all was dark outside, Musubi, the goddess of joy and laughter left the island using a teleportation device. She had her instructions from Miya. It wasn't really all hard to do. She was so excited about her job and she just had the perfect candidate for their "experiment".

_Scene change_

"Unghh... why is it so cold?", Minato wondered drowsily as he fought to open his eyes. Aside from the cold, there was a soft but heavy wait on his chest. The cold was easily solvable. A breeze blew through the open window ruffling the curtains, making Minato notice that he somehow had left a window open. But he never opened them... Through the dim moonlit night, he saw that something was indeed on top of him. He was preparing to scream when his eyes adjusted to the lack of light. "Dear goddess... Musubi?"

Continued next chapter.

Review please.


	3. Chapter 3

Fic Notes: In reality, the characters should have different names. I just used the original character names to avoid confusion. Also, unlike canon, the sekirei here have been exposed to the whole world, not just Japan. And yeah, they're not sekirei. In canon, the sekirei were a human invention of Minaka Hiroto, Asama Takehito and Sahashi Takami. In this story, those three didn't manage to get their grubby hands on these lovely aliens. So what exactly are they? Good question.

Excerpts of the meeting that took place before Musubi left the island. The people participating were Miya, Matsu, Kazehana, Karasuba, Mutsu, Homura, Akizu, Yume, Tsukiumi and Uzume.

serious Miya: All right, just as we've done in the past, we need to go out 1 by 1 and personally get in touch with a few people. Those who go out should choose people carefully.

derisive Karasuba: Tch! We could just head on over to our temples and cathedrals and we would make a lot of people happy.

exasperated Miya: This is not the same as the past. We can finally live out there. We need to find a way to be a part of that world out there.

smug Karasuba: And I've always told you that we can rule those monkeys out there.

serious Tsukiumi: I have to agree with Karasuba. If we live in this world, we will be the strongest beings. Weaker people seek protection from the strongest people. If its going to be that way, then we might as well rule them.

frowning Yume: I'm not quite happy with this. I mean. The whole world worships us. What happens to them when they find out that we're not gods?

stunned silence...

frowning Kazehana: We never thought of that, Miya.

still stunned Miya: No, we didn't.

thoughtful Homura: Remember the people of ancient Egypt? When we went to them, they called us using the names of their gods. When they found out that we weren't their gods, they started to attack us. They called us witches and warlocks who were trying to induce heresy.

thoughtful Mutsu: I remember. We almost had to leave if it weren't for Tsukiumi.

mischievous Uzume: Yeah. Tsukiumi was very good there. How many undergrounds streams started spouting water?

embarrassed Tsukiumi: Its done. We don't need to talk about that anymore.

grinning Matsu: But you did really great there.

evil grin Miya: But that doesn't excuse the fact that you drowned a whole village. You'll never do that again... right?

scared Tsukiumi: N-no. I already promised and I kept my promise.

amused Kazehana: Well then its all fine. Being unable to sit for a week is a good way to learn a lesson.

embarrassed Tsukiumi: Stop that!

giggles all around

serious Yume: We still have the problem of how people will deal with us not being gods.

suddenly tired Miya: I never really thought about that. All I wanted was to plant ourselves and let our civilization grow.

disdainful Matsu: Hmph! If that's what you really wanted, then why do you keep us in here. You don't even allow us to...

evil grin Miya interrupting Matsu: To what?

suddenly scared Matsu: N-no Miya. I just wanted to know why you kept us in here.

contemplating Miya: Well, would you allow your descendants to live in primitive conditions? Look at the world. Even now, people die of disease and infection. Then look at us. Our technology cures us of all diseases and infections as soon as we are conceived. Can you see now? If I had allowed you to go out and look for your partners, then your descendants would had to live in a primitive world.

seething Tsukiumi: I would never! With those monkeys!

grinning Yume: Well I can't wait. Somewhere out there is my LOVE!

derisive Karasuba: Ara ara... So eager to dirty yourself?

still grinning Yume: You won't know till you tried it.

evil smirk Miya: And have you tried it, Yume?

suddenly scared Yume: Ah. No Miya. I didn't disobey you.

satisfied Miya: Good. Now enough of this non-sense. Let's get back to the problem at hand. We need to know how a person will react to finding out that we are not divine beings. We need a test subject. We'll send out Musubi and she will choose among her most faithful worshippers. She will bring that person here. Once that person sees the inside of this ship, he or she will know that we are not really gods.

grumbling all around

envious Matsu: Why Musubi?

sweetly smiling Miya: Because Musubi enjoys these things. She may be naive, but she knows how to pick the right people. Second, because you are perverted and you might do something I told you not to do. Finally, because I said so.

grumble grumble grumble

(Now we go back to Musubi and a very surprised Minato, who suddenly found divine inspiration, neh?)

"Musubi!", a very surprised Minato shouted out loud. "Wh-what the hell is.. No wait! Who are you? How dare you defile Musubi's face by copying it!"

A dumbfounded Musubi stared at the boy. "Oh no, after 500 years, their language has evolved again." Musubi bit her lip, thinking of what to do.

Minato was likewise dumbfounded. He could swear that the fake Musubi (or so he thinks) was speaking Japanese, but he didn't understand a thing she was saying. "Ah... who... are... you?", Minato said slowly, emphasizing each word as if speaking to someone who was deaf.

Musubi shook her head. It was no good. The language she had learned was 1,000 years old. It was still good 500 years ago, but now it seems that it has evolved quickly in just another 500 years. "Um... sorry, but I have to take you with me. Miya will get angry if I don't so you'll just have to come with me", she explained hurriedly, even though she knew he wouldn't understand.

Minato was still trying to grasp what Musubi was saying when he was suddenly pulled up from his futon and forcibly hauled out the window, which was two stories high. "AHHHHHHHHHHGGmmph..." His scream was cut off as Musubi suddenly put her arms around him. His face mashed onto two soft mounds of flesh hidden by cloth. Not being able to see, Minato did not have any idea of what was happening, but he knew that they would fall. Before he could struggle though, Minato felt a jolt and a rush of wind.

Musubi was in a hurry. She had no choice but to drag this person along to the transfer point. From there, it was a simple process of teleporting back to the ship.

_Scene Change_

Yukari frowned. She had been trying to call her onii-chan for several hours now. She just arrived in Tokyo, and she was expecting to see him. "Really! I wonder what stupid ecchi onii-chan is up to", she muttered disgustedly.

Continued next chapter.

Please review.


	4. Chapter 4

Minato struggled to shout out a few words. Something along the lines of "what the hell are you doing!" or "STOP!" would have helped. Unfortunately, his face was still buried between that huge chest. Furthermore, all he could do at the moment was to put his arms around the woman and hang on for dear life. The force of the wind and the g-forces he was feeling was something definitely impossible to produce without the help of any mechanical gadget. Whoever this person was... 'Could she really be the goddess Musubi?', a stunned Minato wondered in his thoughts.

It was a good thing that it was dark. Musubi had no difficulty from hiding herself and the faithful person she was carrying. Yes he was faithful. After all, he visited her cathedral every day. Not that she was a divine being deserving worship; but still, it was very... heart-warming for someone to have so much faith in you even though he didn't have proof of your existence. This boy was what Miya was looking for. She wanted proof of a human's ability to have deeply positive emotions. Musubi just hoped that he could pass the test on the island. She didn't exactly know what Miya would do if he failed. But Miya has never killed anyone, so... she had hopes that she would get to know this boy she was carrying. But anyway, she hoped that he was not tired of the trip because the teleportation sequence was very hard on the body. Truth to tell, she could have asked to be teleported back to the ship in the boy's house, but teleportation not only ripped the physical things, it ripped everything; including reality. So instead of using teleportation in a densely packed area, she had to travel where there was virtually no person who could be harmed by the backlash of the sequence. Even if the reality rip heals itself within minutes, the backlash itself was dangerous.

'Finally', Minato thought to himself, 'we stopped'. But just as he was about to struggle out of the woman's grasp, he suddenly felt pins and needles sticking into him all over his body. Coupled with that was a sensation of vertigo. Then he passed out.

_Scene change_ : _The Peanut Gallery_

"So that's him?", a slightly disappointed Matsu commented as she and almost everyone else peered at their respective view screens focused on the boy lying unconscious outside of the ship.

"Yes!", Musubi enthused, then frowned. "But, I couldn't understand what he was saying. I think their language has changed."

"That could happen", Miya stated calmly. "Matsu, get a good compilation of their local modern language literature and have a translator fixed up within the hour. Also find out who he is", she ordered.

"You certainly don't expect much", Matsu grumbled.

"Don't worry! I'll help!", Yume said enthusiastically. "The sooner we can talk to them, the sooner we can find love!"

"Musubi will help too!", Musubi yelled with sparkling eyes.

Tsukiumi snorted. "He looks like the weakest monkey of all."

_Scene change : Outside the ship_

Minato groaned as he regained consciousness. He would have jolted awake if it weren't for the lingering weakness in his body. "What happened?", he groaned out weakly from his prone position, although he spluttered and spat after his mouth encountered loose soil. Blinking his eyes open, he predictably asked himself, "Where am I?". Then he groaned again as he turned to lie on his back and rested.

_Peanut Gallery_

"He looks like a lazy bum. A weak, lazy bum", Homura commented.

"Well, that may be true. You see, he's been two years out of school now. They have a term for that. A ronin", Matsu interjected.

"Ronin?", Miya asked with raised eyebrows. "Wasn't that the term for failed or master-less samurai?"

"Well, it seems that they use it for something else now", Matsu explained. "Ah... yes here. His name is Sahashi Minato. Sahashi is his surname. Its in their culture to use the surname first. Anyway, he is Sahashi Minato. He was a top student in high school. For further studies, he chose to enter Tokyo University or Todai, the number one university in his country. He failed the exams twice already. Since he didn't choose to enter another school, he's been out of school for two years".

"Well,I could understand that he was confident of being able to enter, being a top high school student. But he failed. I wonder why?", Uzume commented.

Matsu shrugged. "Who knows. Now to continue. His mother is Sahashi Takami, a former student of Tokyo University, a degree holder of pharmacy and a professor in that same college. She resigned her position. Immediately after a year, Sahashi Minato was born. After a few months, Sahashi Takami sought out a job and ended up being a heavy equipment operator for construction", Matsu paused. "In my analysis, that is a very radical change of lifestyle. But I suppose giving birth to a child for the first time will force that change. Also, her resignation at the university and the coincidental birth of Minato a year later might suggest that what forced her to change was something that occurred before she actually resigned and... there's more even interesting stuff here. When Sahashi Takami was a student, she and two more of her school mates received a grant from Tokyo University. The grant was part of a thesis that three students were working on. They hired a boat to come here to us. The two other people are Minaka Hiroto and Asama Takehito. All three of them had been top students in Todai and are heavily connected to it", Matsu finished explaining.

"I see. Very interesting", Miya commented. "Let's get back to..."

"Wait!" Matsu interrupted. "Its in Sahashi Minato's birth certificate. It says the mother is not married but the father is Minaka Hiroto."

"Ah... everything becomes clear", said Kazehana as she nodded her head.

"And he has a sister too. Her name is Yukari. Father is listed as the same person", Matsu continued.

"Are they living together?", Homura asked.

"No. They have different addresses. Minaka is in Tokyo while Takami is not", answered Matsu.

"How tragic", commented Kazehana with a sad face.

"Oh look!", Musubi exclaimed. "He's getting up."

_Outside the ship_

Minato stood up weakly, stumbling about to regain his balance. When he figured he was ok, he looked around him. What he saw in the faint light of the moon confused him. There was a big hunk of shining metal which stretched from end to end. The darkness prevented him from seeing how long or how high it was. But it was strange because structures using unpainted metal as an exterior were very much unheard of. 'Well, I suppose some perspective will give me a better idea of what this thing is', Minato thought to himself as he turned away from the structure and walked for a few minutes.

_Peanut Gallery_

"Where is he going?", Kazehana asked curiously. "Isn't he interested in the ship at all? I mean, he's not even going around the ship, but he's actually walking away from it?"

"Maybe he's looking for a road?", Matsu hypothesized.

"Tch, he's not only the weakest, but he's also the dumbest monkey of all", Tsukiumi said disdainfully.

"He's not!", Musubi defended the boy vehemently. "He's a person who has a lot of faith and trust in him. He's faithful to me even though he doesn't know I exist. That's why I chose him."

Karasuba chuckled derisively.

_Outside the ship_

As Minato walked on, he observed the ground and thought it strange. There wasn't a piece of land in Tokyo that was left unchanged like this. The ground was dusty and flat with only a few rocks scattered here and there to break the monotony of flatness. He wondered where he was. Well, if not too much time had passed, then he definitely was still in Tokyo. But this ground was unfamiliar. What was even stranger was what happened earlier. No matter how he thought of it, there was just no explanation for Musubi, or a being with her likeness, to interact with him. He wasn't worthy of the gods' notice after all. So what happened?

Figuring he'd gone out far enough, Minato stopped and turned back to look again. What he saw was a huge silhouette of a not so tall elongated structure with several jutting protrusions on one end and what were obviously round, cylindrical objects on the other end. In spite of its monolithic size, the structure was surprisingly compact and had an aerodynamically streamlined shell. 'Just what am I seeing?', he thought to himself as he looked on in awe at what was before him. 'Now I need to get a closer look', he thought, as he walked back to where he came from.

_Peanut Gallery_

"He's walking back. Now what?", a confused Uzume commented.

"I think he did that so he could look at the ship from afar", Matsu interjected. "Since he was too near to look at the whole, he had to move at a distance."

"See! He's not dumb!", Musubi shouted gleefully.

Tsukiumi snorted.

_Outside the ship_

'Alright', Minato thought to himself. 'I saw what I saw. It was streamlined. Not just streamlined, but aerodynamically streamlined. And its huge too. So what could it be?'

After a few minutes, Minato reached the sides of the hunk of streamlined metal. He reached out to touch it and found it to be smooth as ivory. "Impossible", he muttered. Metal could be smoothed out, sure, but not to this extent. He began walking towards the side where he saw cylindrical shapes. As he moved along, he continued looking at the surface of metal. He couldn't find a seam. He'd already walked 50 feet and there was no evidence of even a single seam. "Impossible", he muttered again. From what he saw, the thing curved at the top and the bottom. Well, he could clearly see that it was curving inward towards... whatever it was. But there was no space under it. It was resting on the ground.

As he gradually neared the end, the undersides of the metal structure started to taper upwards. Underneath it, where Minato expected to see soil, was a bed of shining crystal. "Huh?", a confused Minato scratched his head. Kneeling down on one leg, Minato touched the crystals and found nothing extraordinary about them. Well... to him, it looked like ordinary crystal. He wasn't a mineralogist. But what was crystal doing here?

Minato walked away from the crystal and went on to the end where he could finally view the cylinders. He would figure out the crystal when he had more clues. From the curvature of the cylinders he could see, they were so huge that the whole apartment complex where he lived could fit in one of them. He couldn't touch them because they were too high. But, he saw that there were three of them in the bottom row and another row of three on top; which he could barely see through the darkness and the gaps between the bottom cylinders.

Minato finally let his head drop. He had to think about this whole thing. He would walk around this object to see if he could find more clues. At the same time he was thinking fast. A person who looked like a goddess brought him here. When he walked away, there was nothing but flat land. Furthermore, around the flat land, he could make out the rim of a cliff rising above. Astonishingly, that cliff seemed to surround the whole area of the flat land. At least, that was what he thought he could see because the moon clearly defined the edges of the cliff. What was it? A dried up lake? Or maybe if he allowed himself to think of it, it was a crater and this thing at the center was an alien ship? But no, he would look for natural solutions first before he acknowledged the extraterrestrial. But whatever this thing was, he definitely wasn't in Tokyo.

_Peanut Gallery_

"Well, it seems that he's doing the sensible thing now, studying our ship instead of walking away like that earlier", a derisive Karasuba murmured to no one in particular.

"It may look like that, but he seems to be doing it methodically", Matsu intervened. "He hasn't jumped or skipped anything. He's taking in what he sees as he sees them."

Musubi giggled happily at hearing Matsu's analysis of Minato, which made him look brilliant.

"He's still a weak monkey", Tsukiumi snorted derisively, again.

_Outside the ship_

'Well', thought Minato, 'there's only one way to confirm what this is'. He had finished walking the other side and found nothing either. Now he was thinking that he needed to look at it from above. He needed to climb those cliffs. The shining metal will reflect the moon's light and make it shine and he will get to see everything. Once again, Minato walked away from the ship. This time, he didn't stop but kept going.

_Peanut Gallery_

Tsukiumi snorted. "What a weak dummy! He's turned his back on us."

"I don't exactly know why, but I don't think he's turning his back", Matsu countered. "He's very methodical. Its not in his character to turn back until he's solved a puzzle. But... what is he... Maybe he wants to take a look at the environment, trying to pick up clues."

"Well, whatever. I'm going to sleep. Wake me up when he figures it out in another 500 years", said Karasuba as she smiled sardonically.

Most of the others followed Karasuba and went to their respective rooms. Those who remained behind in the peanut gallery... I mean, the ship's command center, were Musubi, who was interested in Minato, Yume, who hoped that Minato would figure it out for Mususbi's sake, Tsukiumi, who couldn't wait to see Minato phail, Kazehana, who was secretly interested with Minato, Matsu, who had secretive perverted thoughts about Minato (she was imagining them having rough sex outside), Uzume, because she didn't want to sleep yet, Homura, because he had a role to play and couldn't leave until the boy figured it out and Miya who was sitting so serenely you'd think she wasn't thinking about anything at all. Which she wasn't.

"Look! He's climbing up the crater. Why is he doing that?", a confused Musubi wandered out loud.

"Its like I said. Maybe he wants to take a really good look at everything at once", Matsu reminded her.

_Outside the ship_

Minato was huffing and puffing from exhaustion. He sported a few scrapes and bruises as well from the long arduous climb in the darkness. It took him a few hours, but now he was finally on top. He lay down on the ground for a few minutes to recover.

_Peanut Gallery_

"Any human could have climbed that cliff without difficulty. He's just weak", Tsukiumi declared.

"It doesn't matter", Musubi said, sick and tired of hearing Tsukiumi and everyone else perform oral defamation on her most faithful subject. "I'm strong enough to protect him", she declared nonchalantly.

"Huh? Musubi? Have you chosen your mate already?", a confused Uzume asked the now blushing Musubi.

"I-it doesn't matter", an embarrassed Musubi muttered mulishly. "I-Its not that I've picked him. He picked me instead of all of you. And I-I... I just... I just like that, I guess", Musubi ended lamely.

"Well, I won't go so far as to pick your mates for you", a suddenly serious Miya warned, "but I will stop you from joining yourselves with weaklings like him. Even if he proves to be emotionally strong, his physical abilities are too weak for a human."

Musubi looked at Miya in dismay. Not that she wanted that Minato boy to be her mate, but because... well, because... what was she feeling?

_Outside the ship_

As soon as Minato was able to catch his breath, he got back up and focused his eyesight to where the thing was. He was right, the moonlight illuminated the metal surface. It was shining. It was huge. It was a craft. Since it wasn't anywhere near water, he figured that it wasn't a submarine. Those cylindrical shapes now looked like thrusters of some sort. It was indeed a ship. But was it extraterrestrial? Maybe, just maybe it was. What made it even more convincing was the position of the ship. It was dead center within that crater.

Well, now his curiosity has been aroused... Musubi, or someone like her, brought him here... Why? Well... that was something that couldn't be answered without proof. He'd try to find an entrance to that ship later. He needed to figure out where he was first; fast. He was itching to get his hands on that ship again.

_Peanut Gallery_

"Where is he going now?", Miya wandered aloud.

"Maybe he's going to swim back home", Tsukiumi repled sarcastically.

"Miya... I'm so sleepy", complained Homura. "Can't we postpone this for another day? It doesn't look like he'll get to come in here anyway."

"Unless he actually leaves this island, we wait. Besides, aren't you interested in playing the evil god and making a mere mortal tremble to his bones in fear? We even made a costume for you. Nufufufu."

_Outside the ship_

Minato shivered as a cold wind blew.

Continued next chapter.

Please review.


	5. Chapter 5

It was a surprisingly short walk for Minato down a gently sloping hill when he heard the sound of breakers crashing on the beach. It didn't tell him anything of course except that the sea was nearby. The unmistakable smell of seawater wafted around him as a constant strong breeze ruffled his hair, making him shiver in the cold dark night. Minato debated with himself. Should he follow the beach or go back to the 'maybe' alien ship? 'Why am I even asking this question?', he thought. 'Of course I'll go back.' So thinking, Minato did an about face and excitedly walked up the hill. He couldn't wait to explore a possible alien ship after all. Already his imagination was running wild. The ship's surface was pristine. Chances are the insides of the ship would be the same. Which meant that there was a high possibility that someone or something could be in there. Minato shivered. He didn't mind finding someone... as long as he didn't find some _thing_. Good thing he wasn't a girl... just in case he encountered tentacle things. Minato shivered again.

It was tough getting down the cliff's face. But the moon was bright enough that he could see the ground. When he was on flat land again, he walked rapidly towards the alien ship. He found no traces of a door on the sides. This time, he'd try exploring the partially exposed undersides of the ship. Maybe there was something there. 'Goddess Musubi', he prayed to his favourite deity, 'please keep watch over me'.

_Ship's command center (former peanut gallery)_

"He's come back", Musubi exclaimed happily.

"Well, he really has nowhere to go", Kazehana explained helpfully.

"And here I thought I could sleep", Homura exclaimed disgustedly.

"Patience... Homura", Miya said... sweetly.

"Why don't we just bring him inside and begin the torture?", Tsukiumi asked Miya eagerly.

"Torture!", Musubi gasped.

"Fufufu... as I said, a little patience. Matsu, once he finds a hatch, release the lock but don't open it. Let him figure it out", she commanded.

"Aye commander", Matsu responded crisply. "Kuh... can't wait to get my hands on him."

"Did I hear you say something perverted, Matsu?", Miya asked smilingly.

"Ah n-no. I just want to experiment... I mean I just want to experiment with the new translator", Matsu finished, grateful that she found something else to say instead of what she was going to say. Which was going to be bad if Miya heard it.

"Fu... think you're so smart?", Miya grinned evilly. "Well, we'll let that pass. But the next time you try experimenting with something, or rather some_one,_ without my permission, I'll confine you to this ship for as long as you live. Is that clear?", Miya finished crisply.

"V-very clear captain", Matsu replied fearfully.

"That goes for all of you too. No playing around unless I say so", Miya glaringly addressed all the _children_ who were present.

"P-pretty clear Miya", responded Homura. To be honest, he felt like using the word mother, but he remembered when he tried calling her that once before. Homura shuddered.

Yume giggled.

"You're no fun", Kazehana muttered under her breath.

"I heard that", Miya quipped.

"He's found the hatch", Matsu murmured excitedly, also glad to distract Miya.

"He'll have no problems opening it. Make sure the hallway is well lit. Once he gets inside, close it and seal the particular area he is in. Activate thought sensors. We want to know what he is thinking too. Put his thoughts through the communications console so we can hear them", she ordered Matsu.

"As you say, Miya", Matsu acquiesced.

_Outside the ship_

He was very lucky. He found an indentation pretty quickly on the otherwise smooth and seamless exterior on the underside of the ship. He called it ship. He still refused to acknowledge that there were aliens. Who was to say that human technology wasn't capable of creating this? But it sure was something he never knew about before. And he knew a lot too. As Minato looked closer, he found out that the indentation was just that; an indentation. There were no grooves for handles, no numeric keypads for coded access and no print recognition systems. Still, it was worth a try since there was nothing else. Minato ran his pointer finger over the indentation and waited. After a few seconds, Minato ran his thumb over the indentation and waited. One by one, Minato pressed his fingers on the indentation as one would do in finger printing. When that didn't work, he pressed all five of his finger tips but got no result. Then he pressed his whole palm into the indentation. After a few seconds more, Minato felt a strong breeze coming from the ship's exterior that was right in front of him. To his astonishment, a rectangular shaped aperture appeared in front of him. Or rather, part of the ship's exterior disappeared to make a human-sized passageway. Minato stared in consternation at the now open part of the ship. 'Definitely not human', he thought to himself. He wanted to look around to see if David Blaine was anywhere near, but it was a ridiculous thought. He was here alone.

Taking a deep breath, Minato steeled himself as he prepared to enter the door. "Dear goddess Musubi", he prayed fervently, "please protect me from tentacles."

_Ship's command center_

"Did he say tentacles?", a flabbergasted Uzume asked no one in particular.

"Musubi... He's your worshipper... what do you know about these... tentacles?", a confused Yume asked.

"Tentacles? Where are the tentacles?", an even more confused Musubi asked.

"Is this something cultural in nature?", a curious Miya asked.

Frowning, Tsukiumi tried very hard to think of what tentacles he was referring too, but she came up with nothing either.

Matsu suppressed her giggles. She had been watching all sorts of perverted stuff and she sort of knew what Minato meant by tentacles. It was just that Miya would not understand... no. Definitely not. "Ummm, I'm sorry but, did you want me to close the door when he went in?", she directed to Miya.

Miya replied, "Yes, then seal his area."

"I don't understand why, but its sealed now", Matsu replied.

"Good", she replied then paused, as if reluctant to continue. Taking a deep breath, she ordered grimly, "Tsukiumi, flood his area with water".

Tsukiumi looked at Miya in surprise. "But you said no more drowning people", she protested.

"Flood the area", Miya repeated with quiet intensity.

"Yes, Miya", a reluctant Tsukiumi replied. Not that she was reluctant to drown a monkey, but because she had been warned about drowning monkeys long before. But since she was ordered to do it... Tsukiumi extended her being, taking note of the particles of air. It was too dry, thanks to the air filters on board. She would need something else. She felt for the sewage pipes of the ship. The water was dirty of course. But once she manipulated its particles, it would be clean. There was no need to add insult to injury by drowning the poor bastard in dirty water.

_Scene change_

Minato looked around the rather well lit corridor. He was finally inside the ship. The walls of the corridor looked like they were lined with some sort of soft, dirty white, material in square foot patterns with blue borders. It yielded to his touch. The floor was all shiny metal; quite similar to the metal making up the ship's exterior. To the left and right of him, at equal distances of 10 feet or so, there were short passageways which ended in walls that probably housed doors. Just before he could decide which direction he would take, the disappeared door suddenly reformed. Taking deep breaths, Minato kept himself from panicking. 'It was an automatic door, that's all it was', he thought to himself. Quickly, he went to the now gone aperture. He frantically looked for any sign of a door opener. He was sweating profusely. No wait. It was too cool to sweat. "What...?" He looked around in surprise as he saw that the walls too were gushing out water. Not just those little drops of condensation found in cold drinking containers, but the force was similar to water gushing out of a faucet. It was gushing everywhere, even from thin air. "Shit! Shitshitshitshit! Fuck!" Minato frantically returned to his inspection of the door. He was starting to panic now. He happened to glance at the floor and noticed that the water was collecting, not flowing away. He was going to drown if this didn't stop; or if he didn't manage to get out. A few seconds pass, and the water level rose to his hips. Minato kept on looking. He ran his hands on every part of the wall, hoping against hope that he would find something with which to open the door. Unfortunately for him, the ship's walls were pretty solid. No matter where he pressed or rubbed, nothing happened, save for the water rising now to his chest.

"No!", he shouted uselessly in panic. "No please! Goddess! Please help! You brought me here", he accused. "Please help!" Valiantly, vainly, Minato searched for as long as he could. A few more seconds passed and he was underwater. He swam to the top, but there was only so much space, and that too was gone. He was going to die. His life... what had he accomplished? He was a failure. Where was justice? Did he use up all his chances? Was this his fate? Minato tried to keep his breath for as long as he could, but it was inevitable. He needed to breathe. His body fought to breathe. All it took was one small, unconscious breath and he was taking in water. He coughed, his lungs, reacting to the water, tried to breathe air, but there was none.

Before he gave himself up to drowning, Minato had one last thought. It was for Musubi, the goddess of joy and laughter. He prayed... he prayed that whatever happened, he wished to be with her. He wanted to be with her. He wanted to know what it was like to be in her presence. He wanted to find joy and happiness. Something that only the goddess Musubi could give.

Continued next chapter.

I'm dying for your reviews.


	6. Chapter 6

Fic Notes alluding to historical anomalies: This is in response to DMacIntosh's review of chapter 5 on 2010 08 07. In his review, DMac was hoping for some kind of explanation for how one world religion has changed the world. I replied to him in private, but I figured that you might be curious too, so I am putting it down here. The following is my reply:

"Actually, I'd be happy with any kind of review, even if its to criticize. It helps with broadening my point of view as the writer.

As for history, you are right. No Judaism, no Islam, no Christianity, no anything related to religion (including Nazi Germany) except the gods that are the sekirei, but they're not really sekirei, because sekirei was asama takehito's plan. He doesn't get to touch them in this fic. He doesn't get to alter them. They are true blood aliens, like Miya. But I digress.

How could you explain what happened to all of history except maybe to re-write 5,000 years of history? lol It would require a whole book as thick as the bible to re-write 5,000 years from the sekirei perspective. I'll tell you this though, if I wanted a novel, I'd write my own story and earn $. lol

So, because I don't really wanna write a novel as long as the bible, let's just call it status quo. The countries are what they are today. They resulted from internecine human wars throughout history. So how did American independence take place? It had nothing to do with religion, so I imagine that it took place as it did in history.

What happened to Adolph Hitler? He probably worshiped Musubi and never formed the general staff. Maybe he didn't even enter politics. As a result, Germany was always whole, as it is whole today.

There were no crusades... What's the effect? I dunno... no terrorists? lol Why not? Since enmity between Islam and Christianity never took place, then no terrorists. Right?

So maybe having one world religion is so much better. I hope this satisfies you. I won't write 5,000 years down. Even as an adjunct, prologue or epilogue to the fic, telling a fictional story spanning 5,000 years is just too much work.

I meant no offense in this reply. Its just that, the moment I read your review, I imagined myself being buried in paperwork. lol"

Well, hope you guys and gals enjoyed that interesting tidbit. On to chapter 5.

Musubi looked on in horror at Minato's drastic situation. Without thinking of the consequences, she began to dash for a command console which would allow her to save Minato from drowning. Miya, aware that what she was doing was very cruel, knew that someone would object and was prepared for such an action. She dashed to intercept Musubi and immobilized her from further movement. All the others looked on in silence. They had never done this before and if ever there was one person whom they thought would not be so cruel, it was Miya.

Musubi struggled to get free of Miya, thinking only of saving Minato. A few moments later, Miya lay her on the deck, unconscious. "Remove the water Tsukiumi, at once", Miya ordered intensely.

Tsukiumi had never obeyed an order so fast in her life. Though she did drown a whole village in the past, it was nothing more than a regrettable accident. To actually kill a person with deliberation, even if the person was weak... Tsukiumi was shivering as she quickly withdrew the water from Minato's sealed compartment. She promised herself to never again take any kind of life for granted.

Homura, Uzume, Matsu and Kazehana were all staring at Miya in shock. Never in their lives, never in their imaginings did they think that Miya would do something like this. Was it even necessary?

Yume was very angry. Life was supposed to be lived and loved, not treated this way. She was standing up, trembling from anger; very much ready to pounce on Miya. "W-was that really necessary?", she trembled as she spoke through gritted teeth.

"Yes it was.", she replied to Yume then barked, "Uzume, get the boy and bring him to the med lab. Keep him sedated."

Uzume was still staring at Miya in horror but immediately followed the command. No matter how much she wanted to protest what Miya did, the boy's well-being was more important than starting a heated argument. She immediately dashed through the ship until she reached the wet, unconscious form of the boy. Gently, she picked him up and cradled him close. Going as fast as she could without bouncing her burden, she headed for the ship's med lab.

Back in the command center, Kazehana was arguing heatedly. Miya was stoically silent as Kazehana delivered a blistering lecture on ethics and the value of life. Yume, likewise stood by Kazehana's side and faced Miya. Yume was ready to punch holes. When they were done, Miya spoke quietly.

"I did what I had to do for us all. I have done many other things in the past. Some more deplorable than this. All of those, I did for our survival. Some of those you may not remember, some you weren't even born yet. Lastly, yes, I have committed murder on several occasions; again, all to protect our sanctuary. Until, you can lead and protect others, even if you had to do what I'd done and have a clear conscience afterward, don't question my ethics. A leader has to do what is best for those he or she protects; even to sacrifice her own life for the survival of the group. Until you have resolve like mine inside you, do not criticize or think me to be evil. I did what I had to do", she ended angrily, bitterly. After a few a moments pause, she spoke again. "Homura! Your part begins now. Don't make any mistakes. You better sedate Musubi too."

"Yes, Miya", Homura murmured quietly. Like all the rest, he didn't quite agree with Miya. Maybe you had to do some not so nice things as a leader, but right now, he could not be fair in his assessment. His anger was still burning within him.

"Everyone else, get out! Go to your rooms and sleep. There's no need for you here", Miya ordered angrily.

Stunned by Miya's revelation and bitter anger, Kazehana, Yume, Matsu and Tsukiumi all left silently, leaving Miya alone in the command center.

After they had left, Miya reached out for her mental link with the ship. She locked the command center so that no one could get in. Once done, she slumped on a chair, shivering; still not used to having to do what was necessary, even if it was for their own survival.

_Unknown location_

Minato gradually returned to consciousness. He tried to sit up as quickly as he could, but the pain in his head and chest kept him moving slowly. He gritted his teeth and sat up ever so carefully. Opening his eyes to small slits, Minato found himself in a dark place illuminated by orange light. At least, that's what his blurry eyes saw. In addition, he felt hot. It was so hot that he was sweating. Oddly enough, his clothes were dry. Making sure that his body was okay, he waited a few minutes to let his body accustom itself to moving again. He looked around while he sat. The blurriness from his eyes had somehow dissipated. From where he was, he saw nothing but stone. Huge boulders and slabs of solid stone made up the walls, ceiling and floor. Directly in front of him was a stone wall that went from floor to ceiling. The edges of the wall just stopped touching the right and left walls by a few feet, just large enough to let a human through. That's where the orange glow was coming from; through those gaps. Looking behind him, he saw nothing but solid stone. 'Guess there's only one way to go', he thought. 'But wait a minute. How did I get here?' As soon as that thought touched his mind, flashes of memory came rushing back, showing him in every detail the terror and despondency he felt while he was drowning. "Oh god!", Minato exclaimed. "I drowned? But where is this?", he asked aloud, but no one answered. He was alone.

Groaning as he got up to his feet, Minato limped towards the left opening. It made no sense that he was here now. The last thing he remembered was being trapped in the ship's corridor. Now he needed some answers. The first thing of course was where was here.

Minato walked through the gap and entered a fire lit chamber, which was even hotter than where he came from. Sweat began to evaporate from his skin. He even had to cover his eyes because of the brightness of the fires. The fires were everywhere. "Ah, greetings, Sahashi Minato", an unmistakably male voice said.

Still covering his eyes with his arm, Minato was unable to see anything but his feet. "W-who are you?", he questioned blindly.

"Too bright for you? Sorry sorry. Let me adjust the flames... There." As he said it, the light from the flames grew dimmer, but the heat remained.

Blinking his eyes to adjust to the light, Minato saw that he was in a square chamber surrounded by three stone walls. 'The other wall with gaps on both side must have been a divider', Minato thought. But it didn't make sense since both chambers neither had an exit nor an entrance. He swung his eyes to the figure of a man back lit by the fire. From what he could see, the man had his head bowed. "Where am I? Who are you?", he asked in confusion.

"You don't remember? You drowned", the man replied matter-of-factly.

"Well yes I remember. But this isn't where I was. So where is this and who are you?", Minato demanded.

"Hmmm... quite arrogant for one so weak", the man said thoughtfully, softly but loud enough for Minato to hear. "But anyway. You are here. Here is my domain. I bid you welcome, Sahashi Minato. I hope you enjoy your stay here."

"Wh-what are you saying? And how do you know my name?", Minato was even more confused now.

"As I said, you are welcome here", the man replied. "As for how I know your name, well its because I imagine...", the man said as he finally raised his head. On top of his head were two short protrusions that were obviously horns. "Its because I imagine, that it is easy for a god to find out these things, neh?"

Minato's eyes grew large in horror at what, or rather who, he was seeing. It was a god alright. It was the god Homura. Homura, the god of fire, Master of Hell and Lord of Evil. A whispered, "Goddess Musubi...", was all that came out of Minato's lips.

"Oh. Well, so you are faithful to my sister then? Well, its rather a big coincidence then, isn't it", the god Homura said enigmatically.

"H-huh? Wh-what are you talking about? What coincidence", Minato demanded, then backpedalled , "I mean, what do you mean, please?"

"Ahh, you found your manners. Is being in front of a god all that scary?", the god asked Minato curiously.

"W-well, y... ah... why am I here please?", was all Minato could say.

"Hmm.. good question", Homura said thoughtfully. "What was your last thought, Sahashi Minato? Was it something like 'I deserve hell' or maybe 'I want to see what hell looks like?'"

"N-No", Minato fearfully stuttered in reply. "Nothing like that. I j... I just wanted to be with Mu-Musubi, the goddess, y-your s-s-s-s-sister."

"Ah. I suppose that's the answer then. It was your last thought to be with my sister. Well you certainly got what you wished for", Homura answered.

"Wh-wha?", Minato stared in consternation at the god Homura. "Mu... I mean, the goddess, your sister lives here?"

Homura grinned with his sparkling teeth showing. Being backlit by the fire, the grin seemed sinister indeed. "Well, yes she is. She made the mistake of visiting. Oh how I wanted her for a thousand years now, but she was ever far from my grasp. But one day she miscalculated, so I grabbed her. Now she is here, ready to fulfil my wish of having her as my bride. Hence she shalt be know as the goddess of joy and laughter, the bride of the Master of Hell. Quite a contradiction don't you think?", an amused Homura asked Minato.

"B-but... she's your sister!", Minato protested.

"What are brother and sister to beings like gods, Sahashi Minato? Even though it is scientifically inadvisable to conceive a child with immediate family as partner, should this affect us gods? Furthermore, you seem to be protesting from a moralistic point of view. Aside from the scientific wrongness, is there anything morally wrong with it, Sahashi Minato?", Homura argued.

Minato's jaw dropped. The devil was not only handsome, he was a handsome devil with a good brain to match. But he wasn't here to argue about morals or ethics. He needed to find out why he was here, and then he would try... 'Oh god what could I do', he thought... he would try to save the goddess Musubi.

Homura raised his eyebrows. "You will try to save my sister from me?"

Minato looked at the evil god, astonished. "Y-you can read my thoughts?", he asked incredulously.

Homura waved his hand. "Details details... besides, I asked first. Will you try to save my sister from my evil grasp?", Homura asked, laughing condescendingly. "Well?", he prompted. "You are a rather amusing person, but I don't have time to wait around. Quickly now, Sahashi Minato. Yes or no. Will you save my sister? Yes or no?", Homura demanded.

"Yes!", Minato shouted. "Yes I will!" He wasn't planning on shouting. Neither was he keen on giving an immediate answer. But he was being pressured to answer. And the one asking the questions was the evil god. And the goddess Musubi, he wanted her safe. His being as Minato, all that he was, his mind and heart, took over for him when he couldn't say anything by shouting out his true feelings. He wanted to rescue the goddess.

"Last chance, Sahashi Minato", Homura began. "For in death have you come to rest with the one you wanted most. Should I slay you, you will be no more. Think well, Sahashi Minato, I give you this one chance. I shall give you back your human life. I shall return you to the world you know. In exchange, forfeit Musubi to me."

Minato looked at Homura with his mouth hanging open. 'This was really happening', he screamed at himself. 'You're about to fight a god...' Minato was shaking in fear. But no matter how much he wanted to say no, he couldn't. It wasn't himself to turn away from someone in need. Chances are he would die. 'No', he thought to himself. 'Even if I die, I would be happy to have done something useful'.

Homura laughed derisively. "And how could you be satisfied with doing something useful by dying? You'd be truly dead. Your existence vanished. How could you appreciate your usefulness then?"

Minato decided to take a stand. "I-if... if it would help the goddess any, I would do anything", he stated determinedly.

"Tch. You have wasted your whole human life and now you waste your immortal life", Homura snorted derisively. "Very well then. As I do not wish to be bothered by people like you again, die, Sahashi Minato. Burn with my flames!"

Minato felt rather than saw the flames licking at him. It was extremely hot. Added to that, the orange brightness intensified once again so that he could not see. Once again, Minato lost consciousness.

Homura put out the fires and ran to the boy to check him for burns. He had made the flames as hot as he could, but not hot enough to burn. Sighing in relief that the boy was not burnt at all, he stood up then raised his head. "It's all done, Miya", he reported quietly.

"I know", Miya answered through the commlink. "Bring him to a room and let Musubi know. You can sleep after", she ordered.

"Was all this necessary, Miya?", Homura challenged.

Miya's answer came after a short pause. "We have lived for a long time. You all saw how cruel humans can be. I just wanted to personally verify that the good side of humanity still exist."

"And if Minato failed?", Homura asked.

"Then we would have looked for another and another, even if in the end we find only one. Any sacrifice is worth it, as long as its for the good", was Miya's reply.

Continued next chapter.

Points to remember: The ship had a thought read reader; thus Homura was able to read Minato. The ship also had an automatic language translator (see previous chapters). This allowed Homura to communicate with Minato and read his thoughts correctly. Just so I don't get questions like how did Homura read Minato's mind?


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter release is not delayed. Just gotten to the part where I have to think about what I'm writing, so releases will be fewer in frequency. Anywho, I present the next chapter.

Musubi sat patiently beside Minato's bed. The boy was asleep. She had been here for hours now ever since he was brought in to recuperate. She had been sad about what Miya had done. She didn't understand why it had to be done. It was really cruel. She had cried about it. She cried even more when she found out how Minato tried to "rescue" her from Homura. It was all pretend to find out how deeply Minato could care. But it was really cruel. In her mind, she had imagined exploring the world. When she saw Minato and how he worshipped her everyday, she imagined that she would take him along. They would go everywhere and he would explain things to her and she would tell him the truth about what she really was. Now she was thinking that they had played with Minato's life. They treated him as if he were less than human. What was Minato gonna be like when he woke up? Musubi was afraid that when Minato woke up, he would hate them all; including her. She didn't want that. Which is why she was here, sitting beside Minato's bed, waiting for him to wake up so she could apologize and explain. It was the least the boy deserved after what he had been put through.

Minato's last thoughts before passing out was he was dead for sure. He supposed that it was useless to wonder about what a life of non-existence would be like since he would cease to exist and therefore not be able to think about it. In the end, he failed to save Musubi, just as he failed to get into college, failing himself and his hard-working mother. That was what he was thinking. He could have done better. But he supposed that, being dead, he wouldn't think of these things anymore. Which was a very good point. Why was he still thinking? Minato struggled with the logic of things as his body got itself ready to wake up. Blinking his eyes open, he found himself lying on his back on a soft but firm bed. Wherever he was, the lights were dimmed down, providing a perfect environment for resting.

He was alive after all. Deciding not to question this stroke of luck, Minato tensed his muscles to stretch. He felt very rested for someone who should be dead. Not just dead, but dead dead gone. But if he was still alive... he could still save... Minato looked around as he thought and his eyes focused on a figure looking at him with huge wondering eyes. He could still save... "Musubi?", he exclaimed. He was so surprised that he didn't notice how he sat up jerkily, too stunned to do anything else but stare at someone who was supposed to be in hell. Because wherever this was, it sure didn't feel like it was hell. It wasn't hot, for one and the room he was in was walled with... the same material that lined the corridors of the ship he was exploring... 'Just where am I and what happened?', Minato frowned thoughtfully to himself. All the while staring at Musubi in stunned amazement.

"Ah... Sahashi Minato", Musubi began hesitantly. "I-I'm glad you're awake. Do... do you feel alright?"

Aside from being a bit dizzy, he didn't feel any pain. So, "I'm f... I'm fine", he stuttered. 'Dear god, how did you talk to a goddess?', Minato panicked.

Musubi stared hard at Minato. It wasn't because she was about to confess feelings of love or something like that. It was more like she didn't know what to say. What they did to him made it harder. Even just thinking about it now made her so sad and caused her eyes to tear up. Musubi bit her lip in frustration. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be.

Seeing tears form in the eyes of the goddess, Minato became even more uncomfortable. It was hard enough to talk to a goddess. A crying goddess made it even harder. "Ah", he began, "a-are you okay, Mu... I mean...", he faltered. 'Crap. How do you address a goddess?', he thought to himself. Valiantly, he tried again. "I mean, are you okay? Are you safe?", he asked with trepidation.

Musubi lifted her bowed head and stared straight at Minato's eyes. "I'm sorry, Minato", she said sorrowfully.

"N-No! No! I mean... Its okay if you are alright", he said vehemently. "It doesn't matter if I died as long as you are ok... I-I'm just happy that you are ok and... I'm here with you", Minato ended softly.

She couldn't help it. Her conscience was pricking her, hard. She did the only thing she could. She cried, hard.

Minato stared aghast at the goddess Musubi, who was crying right there beside him. 'What do I do now?', he thought in panic. Truthfully, he wanted to curl into a ball and cry too. If the goddess of joy and laughter was sad, then Minato was sad too. Painfully sad. It was... it was hard to define the pain he felt at seeing this goddess crying. It was just sad and... wrong? But what could he do? Before he could think of something though, Minato felt, rather than heard the hissing of air as an aperture opened on one of the walls. Minato's eyes almost popped out of his head as he saw another woman come into the room. The purple hair was unmistakable. It was the mark of the mother goddess. Minato stared dumbly as the mother goddess walked to the crying Musubi.

"Musubi", Miya said in gentle but firm tones. "Go outside. I will take your place."

Instinctively responding to Miya's command, Musubi got up and walked out. Even though she wanted to stay with the boy, she did what she was told. Casting one last longing glance in the boy's direction, she left the room.

Minato totally missed Musubi's glances. He was staring at the mother goddess. His eyes were riveted to her. Not even glass breaking would have pulled his eyes away. He was scared stiff. Maybe if he had thought carefully, logic would have made him suspicious of his location and circumstances, but right now, logic was the furthest thing from his mind. He was trying so hard not to piss his pants. The mother goddess was pretty, but she was very scary.

The reason for Minato's fear could be seen on Miya's face. She was frowning. She was hoping that Musubi would be able to explain everything to the boy. Because the boy was attached to Musubi for some reason, perhaps Musubi explaining things would soothe the hurt and betrayal the boy would surely feel. But Musubi was unable to do it... and because it was her idea, it was her responsibility to make things right. Sighing inwardly, Miya sat down on the chair beside the bed and put on a gracious smile as she turned to face the cowering Minato. "Now then, where do we begin?", she addressed Minato with a gentle smile. Looking at him questioningly, Miya saw that Minato's mouth was wide open. He was breathing hard through his nostrils and his eyes were wide open. Seeing as her conversational partner was struck speechless, she decided to continue speaking. "I am afraid that I will confuse you further. You are not dead, Sahashi Minato. You are within a ship. The same ship you saw outside..." Miya sighed. It was clear that what she was saying was not registering with the boy. There were many instances of people reacting to them this way. But she out of everyone else got the most extreme responses. If it wasn't fear, it was outright devotion. If the world exploded, they would still be staring at her. But she wasn't a god and she didn't deserve this. So she did what she always did. She waited for Minato's awe and fear to subside. Folding her hands on her lap, she sat patiently and stared at the boy; who only kept staring back at her...

'Oh my god. She is saying something', Minato thought. But whatever it was she was saying, he couldn't hear. He was rendered deaf by the blood that was moving through his head. The rush of adrenaline was so strong, he started shivering. He also felt a detachment. Maybe because he felt lightheaded. But he had to get himself under control. Minato snapped himself out of his stupor and tried to gain a modicum of composure. A few deep breaths managed to get his adrenaline under control. His heart was still beating fast though. At least he could think. Licking dry lips, he bowed his head and stuttered, "I-I'm s-s-s-so sorrr-sorry. P-please c-canyourepeatwhatyousaid?", he finished in a rush.

Miya's lips twitched as she looked at Minato's shivering figure and bowed head. Yes, things like these tried her patience, and sometimes it made her want to laugh at how silly it made people look. Right now, she was trying to control her humor. "Sahashi Minato, lift your head and look at me", she ordered crisply with a whip like voice.

Minato jerked and whipped up his head, the command coming from the mother goddess superseding Minato's conscious control over his own body. 'She really was pretty, especially when she smiled', he thought; and then, 'Oh god what am I thinking?'

Miya smiled. She didn't turn off the thought reader and she was amused at what the boy was thinking. She knew she was pretty. A lot of people called 'the mother goddess' beautiful. But it didn't hurt to hear it from time to time. She supposed that most women shared vanity and didn't give a damn. Being vain made women happy. Knowing that she was about to giggle, she spoke instead. "As I was saying, you are not dead." She paused and decided to let that statement sink in.

Minato stared at Miya. This time because he was dumbfounded. He wasn't dead? Well, he was alive wasn't he, so he supposed that what the mother goddess said was true. He was not dead. Glad that his logic was working for him, he beamed happily at the mother goddess. "Yes and I'm so happy that you came to rescue goddess Musubi and me from the evil god Himura", Minato spoke in a rush, making a sign to ward off evil as he spoke Homura's name. In his own mind, Minato could think of no other explanation for him to be alive save with intervention of the mother goddess.

Miya closed her eyes in despair. The boy's logic was still skewed. She had to guide him to the truth. Opening her eyes again, she stared directly at Minato. "Ever since Musubi took you from your house and up till now, not once did you die", she said seriously.

Minato's mouth was hanging open again. 'What would the consequences be if the mother goddess herself lied?', Minato was thinking to himself.

Miya snorted in exasperation. "I am not a god!", she exclaimed in frustration.

Minato's eyes grew even larger in dawning horror. "I knew it!", he exclaimed. "I knew that the Musubi I saw was fake! How-how can you impersonate..." Minato didn't get to finish as Miya abruptly stood, leaned towards him and glared.

"Look around you and use your logic", she ordered angrily. "Look!", she ordered as she swung her arm in an arc. "Where do you think you are? What do you think this is?"

Minato suddenly remembered the ship and the pattern on the walls; the same pattern on this room's walls. He struggled to understand, and Miya saw that struggle in his face.

"Perhaps it would help your reason if you knew that you did not die in the first place", she said helpfully as she sat down again.

Minato's face cleared, but his mouth was still hanging open. "I'm not dead?", he asked Miya rhetorically. "But then, it would make sense if I didn't die. But what happened from then till now is...", he mumbled, trying to rationalize the things that had happened to him.

Miya shook her head. She decided that being direct was much easier. She mentally opened the ship's comm link. "Homura, come to the boy's room", she ordered out loud.

"Wha!", a surprised Minato blurted out. He looked to Miya for clarification, but Miya was not looking at him.

A few seconds later, the same hiss sounded and the aperture formed, revealing Homura in casual clothes. Minato's eyes widened in fear at the sight of the evil god Homura entering his room. Miya, noticing his distress, spoke up. "It would help if you remember that we are not gods."

Minato's fear cleared instantly, although he still felt trepidation at the sight of Homura. Getting his breathing under control, Minato turned to Miya. "If-if you are not gods, and this is a ship... a-an alien ship... then you-you are impersonating the gods! You intend to take over the world!", he accused.

Homura laughed. He couldn't help himself. They had been here 5,000 years. They certainly had many opportunities to take over the world. His laugh got cut off though when he saw Miya glaring at him. "Uh... Hello, Sahashi Minato", he said instead, successfully diverting Miya's attention from himself.

Miya transferred her glare to Minato, which made him cower some more. "For the last time... We are not gods, nor are we impersonating anyone", Miya declared firmly. "I am Miya, this is Homura, and the other one awhile ago was Musubi. Those are our real names", she finished impatiently.

Homura noticed how Minato's gaze was fearfully locked on Miya. He sighed. "Perhaps, Sahashi Minato, it would help you if you suspended all religious belief for a moment and look at this from a scientific point of view", he suggested helpfully.

Minato gratefully drew his gaze away from Miya and instead looked at Homura, less fearfully though. "I-", he stuttered. "I already looked at it that way... and if you have the technology, I'm sure you do, then you can copy anyone's characteristics. Earth medicine can do the same now too", he finished.

Miya didn't think that Minato was a fanatic, but suspending 5,000 years of belief was just too much to ask. She broadened the thought reader, encompassing everyone on board the ship and allowing Minato access to it as well.

Minato shook his head, unaware of the access he was given to the alien device, he continued speaking. "If this really is an alien ship, then you have advanced technology to do who knows what and make it look like they're miracles."

'Wha?', Minato heard a voice in his head. 'Oh, the monkey's awake', the disembodied voice continued.

'Be polite', Miya's voice said, which was also in his head.

'He's awake? Wow! I'm coming to his room', an excited voice declared.

'No', it was Miya again. 'Later when he is ready. Now hush.'

Minato looked at Homura, then Miya, after which he held the sides of his head. Maybe he wasn't okay yet.

'You are fine, Sahashi Minato', Homura told him... in his head.

"The ship has a communicator that allows us to talk using thought", Miya explained aloud. "That is how Homura was able to read your thoughts awhile ago... when you were in... errr... the fake hell", an embarrassed Miya muttered.

'Would the monkey understand that?', a voice said derisively.

'Enough, Karasuba', Miya admonished.

'S-Sahashi Minato', another unknown female voice spoke in his head. 'I-I am v-v-very sorry. I-you... I almost... I mean I, well... you almost drowned you see', the voice finished hastily.

'You never were very good at apologizing, Tsukiumi', another female voice said accompanied with the thought of laughter.

'Shu-shut up! It was horrible, Uzume. Don't joke like that', Tsukiumi's voice replied.

'Kuh... Sahashi Minato', another voice said, the thought accompanied by something intense. Minato couldn't quite figure it out. 'Were you really afraid of tentacles?', the giggling voice asked.

Minato couldn't help it. He blushed. Try as he might to think of something else, his mind kept returning to the various tentacle hentai he had watched. The fact that he knew that other people could read his thoughts made his embarrassment more acute and made trying to steer his thoughts away from it all the harder. Whatever, Minato could clearly hear someone's loud giggles. Overriding the giggles were other thoughts of 'disgusting' and 'pervert' being the most common from a cacophony of voices in his head.

'Y-you disgusting monkey. I take back what I said. I wish you died drowning!', exclaimed the thoughts of Tsukiumi.

Since Minato was so busy looking in his head, he missed the way Miya covered her mouth and turned her back, and the way her shoulders shook silently. Homura was likewise trying to keep a straight face, but bowed his head just to be sure that he maintained his dignity.

'That was... enlightening', a voice that he identified as Karasuba's quipped.

'Kuh... maybe Minato can help me with my experiments', the giggling girl said, this time accompanied by unmistakable lascivious thoughts. Immediately, the link was severed.

Minato looked around and he saw Miya looking at him with a severe expression on her face. He swallowed hard. Well, it wasn't fair, really, to expose a human like him to devices of higher cultures... He was just... primitive compared to them. His physical make up forced him to think of perverted stuff. At least, that was what he thought. "I-I'm very sorry for that", he muttered to Miya and Homura, who's head was still lowered. "I-its just that, well, humans need to..."

"You don't need to explain, Sahashi Minato", Miya interrupted him. "We have been watching humans for over 5,000 years now and we understand exactly what goes on", she explained. "What you need to focus on is your current situation. You are inside an alien ship populated with the beings whom you thought were gods. We are not gods. We are just another kind of species with a few genetic differences from humanity", she finished.

"But... you are immortal", Minato answered lamely, still unwilling to give up his beliefs, because, if they weren't gods then who was? They had lived their lives according to their beliefs in their gods. They had started and ended wars in the name of the gods and now these gods were saying they weren't gods? How could he accept them as they were? If he did, it would leave a deep void in him. It was just like saying that his mother wasn't really his mother or that Yukari was not his blood sister or something like that... but it was actually much more. If they weren't gods... then his whole life was... what?

"No, we are not immortal", Homura answered bluntly. "Like you, we age. But unlike you, our technology can cure aging. So we may look like we are immortal, but we're actually not. Besides, if you are thinking about the 5,000 years we have been alive, well, we spent most of that time in... umm... what do you call it? Suspended animation", Homura finished explaining.

"No", Minato shook his head vehemently. "Musubi is a goddess and you are the fire god and Miya is the mother goddess. Please don't do this to me", Minato begged.

Miya looked somberly at Minato. This was one of the things that they had to figure out. How would humans feel when they told them the truth? "Sahashi", Miya spoke softly, "I need to know what you feel."

"What?", Minato said incredulously as he wiped tears from his eyes. Unknown to him, he had started crying.

"Its one of the things we need to find out", Miya answered. "How would all of humanity feel if or when we tell them who we really are."

"You... you people are disgusting!", Minato exclaimed. "You all lie to me and now you want to know how I feel? What am I? Wait... everything that happened... everything you did to me was an experiment?", he shouted.

"We drowned you, made you think you were dead and put you in a situation to see how you would react, yes", Miya admitted determinedly. She would have to make things right, but right now she had to make this boy see the truth; that they were not gods.

"You... you made me go through that and now you... how could you play with a person like that?", Minato asked indignantly.

"Before you embrace your anger, Sahashi Minato, take into account that we used you to find out how your race would react to the fact of us being not gods", Miya explained. "We need to know, from you..."

"That's...", Minato interrupted. "That's not the point. But if you really want to know why, then I'll tell you!", he was shouting now. "It hurts! I prayed to you, I kept faith in you, I believed in you, so much more than I believed in my mother and sister and friends, and now you tell me that you aren't what I believed in?", Minato finished softly. He was crying, but he didn't care. He felt so helpless and frustrated, and he felt like he was losing something important to him. More important than anything else that mattered in his life.

Miya looked sadly at the boy and gestured for Homura to leave. The boy was crying hard. He was crying for loss; a loss whose magnitude Miya could not fathom. She felt it. She felt that loss and wished that she could take back what she had done. But she had to do it for the sake of her people. She had tried to stop the worship many times in the past. But it didn't work. People believed in them. Their faith increased even more every time they came out of suspended animation every 500 years. Every 500 years, people saw them and the belief in them increased. 500 years ago, that faith was unshakable, unchangeable. The belief became firm. Nothing would undo it. 'And this was the result of trying to undo things', she thought to herself as she looked at the crying boy. Silently, she followed Homura out of the room. Perhaps, given a period time, the boy's reason would force him to re-orient his life. Miya was leaving him alone for that, for now.

Continued next chapter. Didn't think that it would get this long. Reviews pretty please.


	8. Chapter 8

Fic Notes: Since FF is trying its best to eliminate scene separators, I will just **bold face** the first sentence of a paragraph to denote a change of scene in the story. Also, this is a rather long chapter. I pride myself in proofing my own stories, but this one's just too long and I'm kinda sleepy. So if you find any errors, please don't nitpick over it.

A/N: Hi to one of the reviewers, Mr. Redxdragon. I was enjoying your sekirei story, but you deleted it; the one where Minato wings Kuno, Musubi, Oriha and Yashima, but Kuno gets eliminated. That was your story right? I enjoyed that story cause it was different from the canon sekirei wingings. I loved the way you placed Minato through a dark patch. Hell, I'd like to read that again. I'd like you to finish it too. As a matter of fact, I was re-reading it for the thousandth to the xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx thousandth time when you took the bugger down. Even if it's unfinished, put it back... even if you can't finish it. I wanna read it again. Finally, this isn't the place for this, true, but I'd like all the readers to know that redxdragon is a great writer and he deprived me of a damned good read. *sticks out tongue* Edit: In the extreme case where the person I am talking about doesn't refer to Mr. Redxdragon (which is really embarrassing), then this applies to that person who did write it. I liked that story best of all... (whines) Come to think of it... Mr. Inkcredibleink deleted his stories too (whines some more)

and to the anon reviewer... couldn't reply to you in PM.

I didn't think Minato was fanatic was he? Its just that his life is pathetic and he has nothing else except for the goddess to turn to. Also, is giving your life away to save someone an act of fanaticism? He was willing to sacrifice himself for what he believed in, so maybe he wasn't as pathetic as you thought. He's just confused.

The Egyptian pantheon was historically present more than 5,000 years ago... that was before Miya's starship enterprise crashed on earth. And since they built huge buildings like pyramids...

The whole chapter conversation you mentioned is a life changing event, not only for Minato, but for some of the more involved aliens. It has many implications, being life-changing. Some of the characters' future actions may be influenced by that conversation. Its all part of the story.

The pantheon, its formation, sects, cults and rituals are a minor concern... for now. I may or may not include it. Depends on how the story goes... right now, there isn't a need for the details. But I'm almost done torturing our erstwhile hero.

**Miya was in the ship's command center together with Kazehana, Matsu, Homura and Yume**. They were seated around an oblate table with a glass surface, discussing what to do with the boy. Sahashi Minato had served his purpose. Now they were trying to figure out how to make up for the anger and resentment they had caused. She would have liked it better if Karasuba and Mutsu were participating in the command decision meetings, however those two just didn't seem to care.

"Why not let Musubi stay with Minato in his home? I bet she'd like that, and Minato wouldn't have to be miserable living alone", Yume was saying. Like Kazehana, she was a romantic at heart, if just a tad bit more subdued. She knew that her little sister would be very happy if she was able to push this.

Matsu looked at Yume sceptically. "If someone is going to stay with him, then it should be someone who understands things better and can think well. I don't mean to say that Musubi is dumb, but... you have to admit that... ah", Matsu swallowed deeply as she saw Yume's threatening look.

Kazehana shot them an amused look. "Well, I have to agree with Matsu", she began. "Anyone of us in this meeting can serve as his companion. I think the best choice would be myself, though", Kazehana said innocently. 'That boy was sooo cute!', she thought to herself, shivering inwardly.

"Wh- wait!", objected Matsu. "Anyone who stays with Minato will have to be in constant contact with the ship. I can do that best", she protested. Damned if she missed this opportunity.

"Tch. Everyone knows the first thing you'll do is lose your clothes when you get Sahashi Minato alone", Homura commented derisively.

Matsu grinned, not at all offended. "Are you saying you'd like to stay with him, Homura?", she insinuated perversely.

Homura threatened her with a fierce glare.

Yume's and Kazehana's giggles were cut off by Miya's scolding. "Enough of that talk", she growled. "You children are supposed to be all grown up."

Struggling to stifle her giggles, Yume said, "Well, if you can't trust either of them, I guess I can sacrifice some of my time and stay with the boy", she said in a deceptively bored tone.

Miya snorted. "When it comes to that boy, I do not trust any of you here, except for Homura. But seeing as he does not want to, it will have to be someone else", Miya paused as she pondered. After a few moments, she nodded as she came to a decision. "I will assign Yashima to stay with him."

The three ladies(?) present stared incredulously at Miya's pronouncement. Of the three, Kazehana spoke first. "That's unfair Miya", she began to protest.

Miya raised her eyebrows. "Unfair? Did you have any claims on the boy?"

Kazehana blushed. "Well... I-no", she said glumly. "But what I meant was it would be unfair to Musubi."

Miya giggled. "I smell a foul wind blowing."

"I was telling the truth", protested Kazehana, pretending to be hurt by Miya's scepticism; which was justified, but no one else had to know that.

"Why Yashima?", Matsu questioned Miya curiously. For that matter, everyone else was looking at Miya in the same way.

"Yashima is quiet. She is also one of the least worshipped among us; much like Oriha and the others. In other words, she would not bother Minato too much and she can step out into the world without anyone noticing her", Miya explained.

Yume frowned thoughtfully. "Well I suppose. But Musubi won't like it."

Miya sighed. "Musubi is Musubi. A lot of people worship her. Besides, if we left her alone, Yashima would isolate herself. This would be a good learning experience for her. After some time, we can replace Yashima with either Oriha or Katsuragi", she elaborated.

"But", Matsu began to protest.

"But what?", a glaring Miya interrupted her.

"N-nothing. Its just, you know, we're the elders here and it should be us going out there", she bravely reasoned against Miya's obvious irritation.

"Do not try my patience just so you can fulfil your perversions", Miya warned Matsu. "You know very well that most of us whom you refer to as elders are also among those who are worshipped by many. Tsukiumi, how many people pray to her for water? How many women pray to Uzume for beauty? How many people pray to Yume for love? How many people in hot places pray for Kazehana to let the wind blow? If even one of us steps out into the streets of any city in this world, we would be mobbed. Besides, they know that it has been 500 years now. They are waiting for us to come out. Use your head, Matsu", she finished impatiently.

"Well its fine I guess", Yume said hesitantly. "But will the boy accept Yashima, knowing that she is one of us?"

"That's a good point right there", Homura said.

"Well", Matsu hesitated, "I guess we could try to make up for what we've done", she hesitated again. She really wanted to be the one to go with Minato, so she was reluctant to share her ideas. "What I mean is, we changed his life so we should give him something life changing too", Matsu concluded reluctantly.

"We can cure him of all diseases and viral infections", Homura said offhandedly.

"Something like that", Matsu agreed. "But he is still young. He would appreciate something better. What if we bribe his school so he can get accepted?"

Kazehana frowned. "Isn't it a top class school? Can anyone there be bribed?"

Matsu grinned. "I meant bribe figuratively. What if we offer to finance a study grant in exchange for Minato's acceptance? It's done all the time, even in the old days. I mean, we still have that horde of yellow and transparent minerals that the people of this world seem so fascinated with."

"Does it still have any value?", Miya asked.

"I will review the financial workings of this world after we're done", Matsu promised.

"We should probably give him living expenses too", Kazehana added. "Just to make things comfortable for him."

"What do you think, Miya?", Yume asked. "It sounds like a good plan."

"We will discuss the details later as soon as Matsu can get a rounded picture of the world economy", Miya replied. "How long do you think it will take you?", she asked Matsu.

Matsu grinned happily. "They have developed electronics, so I can do it easily."

"Good", Miya said crisply. "Let's get to work."

**Minato lay on his side in a stupor, curled into a ball with his arms around his knees**. He wasn't exactly catatonic. He noticed, for example, when food was brought into his room and that it was either Miya or Musubi who would serve him. Each time, both of them would try to open up a conversion, but he would keep his head averted, refusing to talk, not knowing what to say, unable to find anything to say to these people who were precious to him, or so he thought. He was rudely disabused of that notion some days ago, and he resented it. He had kept faith in something which had no basis in reality. He was deceived. Not only him, but everyone alive was deceived.

"M... please Minato. We are really sorry abou...", Musubi began but was interrupted.

"Why did you do it? You know it was wrong, but you did it anyway", Minato said with bitterness in his heart.

"Because we wanted to know if we can really trust people and also if y...", Musubi replied but was interrupted again.

Minato shook his head vigorously. "There are other ways to find out how trustworthy a person can be", he argued. "What you did was not right!", he shouted.

Musubi bit her lip. Minato was going to be sent home. She wanted to go with him but Miya had someone else to go with him. She begged and cried for Miya to change her mind, but she was adamant. Now she just wanted to say goodbye to him and at least try to make Minato be like what he was before, but he was very angry. "P-please Minato", Musubi begged. "I just... please I am so sorry."

Despite his justified anger, Minato felt like a heel. Musubi was so cute and sincere that it was hard to stay angry at her. He knew that Musubi was incapable of thinking up what had been done to him. But she was the one who brought him here in the first place. And since she was here, all his anger was directed at her. "I am sorry too, Musubi. I believed and trusted in you, but you... you aren't... you're not what you're supposed to be. Y- you lied to the whole world too."

Musubi shook her head in denial. "When we came here, the people worshipped us. We told them so many times to stop. We told them we weren't gods, but they still worshipped us", was Musubi's heartfelt explanation. "It-it wasn't our fault that people think wrongly of us."

"W-well I guess I can understand that, but... you, your people treated me like a laboratory animal. I-I'm not an animal. I'm human", Minato ended softly as bitter tears of regret began to form. "And I believed in all of you."

Musubi looked regretfully at Minato. Like him, she wanted to cry too. But she couldn't make him happy if she was all sad and teary. Instead, she got up from the chair beside Minato's bed and turned her back on him. "M- Miya said that you will be sent home today", she said softly. "I just wanted to say sorry and g-goodbye", she ended shakily. "Please. I will bring you to them."

'At last', he thought. 'I can finally go home.' He quickly got up from the bed to follow Musubi. Outside his erstwhile room, Minato found himself walking behind Musubi in another corridor with the same wall patterns. The corridor was wide enough so that 10 people could comfortably walk side by side. His bare feet felt chilly against the shiny metal surface of the deck. The ceiling had recessed lights where it met with the walls. The lights were distributed in intervals of 3 to 4 feet equidistant. The corridors themselves were straight and without any curves. The turns where made in precise 90 degree angles. After a few short moments, which got him totally lost, they arrived at a circular corridor. Directly in front of them was a solid, metal door, which slid opened as Musubi approached. Stepping aside, she gestured for Minato to enter.

Warily, Minato entered the door and found himself inside a circular chamber. He looked back as the door closed and found that Musubi had left him alone. He looked around. Curiously, the walls of the chamber were covered with transparent glass. There were also many vacant, white easy chairs lining the walls. At the raised circular center of the chamber, much like a dais surrounded by shiny metal hand railings, stood 6 people around an oblong table. He recognized Miya, Homura, Kazehana, Matsu and Yume. The sixth one, who was a female, he didn't recognize at all. Swallowing hard, he moved forward. Musubi did tell him that he was being sent home. At least he could be sure of that.

"Sahashi Minato. Please take a seat", Miya began without preamble, gesturing to one of the vacant seats surrounding the command table.

Gingerly, Minato eased his frame onto an easy chair. He immediately wished that he had furniture like this. He could sleep on it. No he would forsake his futon and use this to sleep in all the time. When he was seated, the rest of them seated themselves as Miya started speaking.

"There is nothing I can say to you that will make it better for you, in light of what has been done. Sahasi Minato, we are very sorry, especially myself. If you want to blame anyone. You can blame me. It was all my idea", Miya paused as she waited for Minato to say something.

Minato kept his head bowed. Having learned that they weren't gods, it didn't change the fact that Miya had an intimidating, commanding and other-worldly aura. The others too, had an aura of confidence. Just by looking at them, you could tell that there was something different. If he didn't know better, Minato would not be able to pinpoint exactly what it was. But since he knew exactly what they were, Minato attributed that difference to other-worldliness; just like Miya, but on a lesser level of intensity. These beings, Minato thought, had power. He had first hand demonstration of that, courtesy of Musubi and Homura. "I-I don't want to think about this anymore", he began hesitantly. "Musubi said I could go home...", his voice trailed off.

Kazehana looked sadly at the boy. It was clear that he didn't want anything to do with them. It was sad especially since they wanted to continue their interaction with him. But they had an offer he couldn't refuse. Kazehana was confident that their carrot was enough to entice Minato to keep in touch with them. She would like it very much if he did. Perhaps, even more than Matsu.

"Ah... forgive my lack of hospitality", said Miya with rounded eyes, covering her lips with her fingers. "I forgot to introduce you. Well, to my right is Kazehana. To her right is Homura. To my left now is Matsu. To her left is Yume. The one seating beside you is Yashima."

'Yashima?', Minato thought to himself... 'Wasn't there a goddess Yashima, patron of carpenters?', he thought as he shrugged inwardly. He still had to force himself to remember that they weren't gods. Aloud he said, "I am Sahashi Minato, a ronin for 2 years now." He didn't say, 'pleased to meet all of you'. They had treated him badly, after all. He had all the excuse in the world to dismiss his manners. But he did look at Yashima as he spoke. She was... pretty, in a youthful way. If she were a student, she would be considered as one of the prettiest in school. Unlike the other not gods people aliens present here, Yashima seemed fresh and innocent, much like Musubi. But she was shy, unlike Musubi.

Yashima acknowledged Minato's presence with a fleeting glance through the corner of her eyes. She held her hands tightly together on her lap. She just managed to avoid wringing her hands together, keeping her nervousness from communicating itself to the boy sitting beside her. What made her nervous and shy at the same time was because she was being ordered... no, forced to live with the boy. She didn't know how to talk to boys. She even avoided Shiina, Mustsu and Homura as much as she could. Now, aside from having to live with this Minato, she also had to go out there. Thinking about going out there made Yashima want to twine her arms through Minato's tightly. She managed to control the urge though. The thought of going out frightened her a lot.

"Yes, about that", Miya continued. "We would like to make it up to you. So we are giving a study grant to Toudai. In exchange, we asked them to accept you as an entry level student. They have agreed. You are directed to go the college dean of your choice for your interview."

Minato's head jerked up in surprise. "Wh-How did you do that?"

Miya cocked her head to the side. "Does it matter? The grant we gave them is genuine and so is your acceptance in the university."

Minato's thoughts were whirling. 'Wow! In everything that's happened I never got to tell mom I failed. Now I won't have to tell her', he thought. 'and that idiot sister of mine won't be able to tease me anymore about being a ronin... is this their way of making up things? It's great but...' "I can't accept", he said aloud. 'How do I explain this? This sure is awkward.' "You see, I didn't earn it, so, I don't feel I deserve it", he explained even as he was thinking, 'Minato, you're an idiot. Yukari would think so to.'

Miya waved her arm dismissively. "Regardless of whether or not you accept, the grant has been given and you are reserved a freshman spot in Tokyo University. If you do not use it, it will go to waste", she reasoned.

"Minato", Kazehana spoke up as she leaned forward, displaying her "assets" clearly for Minato's enjoyment. "What happened was not good, but we still value your life. This was the best way we could think of to make it up to you", she smiled encouragingly at Minato, who blushed when he lost control of his eyes, slipping down to view Kazehana's wonderful cleavage.

Clearing his throat with difficulty, Minato jerked up his head and turned to look somewhere else. He found himself looking at an orange haired woman wearing spectacles. He recognized her as Matsu. The woman was looking at him rather intently. Her gaze made him shiver in fear. He turned instead to look at Yume, who was smiling at him encouragingly. "Ah... I'll think about it", he mumbled as he bowed his head, blushing again. 'Wow, Yume was beautiful too", he thought to himself. Come to think of it, she looked so much like a more mature Musubi. 'Ah but, Matsu was scary. For someone who was supposed to be a patron of knowledge, she sure as hell didn't look like it', was what he was thinking.

Noticing the undercurrents in the room, Miya decided to break the mood. "Aside from the university seat", she began sharply, "you will also receive a monthly stipend of 150,000 yen. We think that it is enough for you to be able to pay for a flat and your food without having the need to work. This will allow you to use your time for studying."

Minato's head jerked up again, this time looking directly at Miya in surprise. His mouth was hanging open too. '150k yen!', he was thinking to himself. Miya was right. With that much money, he could pay for an apartment, pay for his food, clothes and school supplies, pay for water, electricity and have cable TV. 'The purple hair sure looks strange, but she is very pretty too... ah... where'd that thought come from', he thought furiously. He bowed his blushing head again. "I c- I can't accept", he replied. It was harder to refuse this time.

Miya shrugged. "You will be able to access your money through this automatic teller machine card. We will deposit the money every month in that bank account. The account is in your name. Use it as you will."

Minato kept silent, reluctant to lower his pride. It was all he had left.

Seeing the boy's reluctance, Miya decided to try another tactic. "Sahashi Minato, we understand how important it is in your culture to be independent and succeed in supporting one's self; especially for a man. We respect that, and we respect you for it. Please do not think of what we are giving you as charity. Please think of it as an apology, for what we have done. There is no other way to make up for it. Saying sorry is not enough. Using it as an apology is not enough either, but it is all we can give you; another chance for a better life. Please accept our apology. Other than that, you have kept your faith in one of us. As one who worships, do you not expect something, even though the chances of receiving something is almost nil? Furthermore, you have shown your ability to discard your own safety for the sake of someone you care for. That is a trait that can not be repaid, ever. What we are giving to you is a paltry sum for the bravery and selflessness you have shown", Miya stated intensely. "Please, accept our apology and take it also as a reward for the kind of person you have shown yourself to be."

A transfixed Minato stared at Miya. 'Well if she put it that way...', he thought to himself. "I... I accept... but..."

Miya smiled faintly. At least she got that done. Now came the hard part. "Nothing more needs to be said Minato. It is done and over with... I have no right to ask you, but I would like a favor, Sahashi Minato."

Minato suddenly became wary. If people as powerful as this needed a favor from a mere mortal like him... "Ah... I don't know exactly what I can do for you", Minato replied, confused.

"Nothing that will threaten your safety or your life", Miya rushed to assure him. "Just that we would like to ask you to let Yashima stay with you."

"Huh?", an amazed Minato blurted out.

Homura spoke up. "You see, Sahashi-san... that is the way they address people in your country right? Anyway, Sahashi-san, we have been waiting for 5,000 years for an opportunity to live ordinary lives with your race. We couldn't do it then because of the difference in technology. And with man's primitive thought processes then, the technology we had could have been used as weapons. So we waited until today. Yashima staying with you is going to be our first step in your world. That is the favor we ask. That you allow one of us to do so. We also know that you like Musubi, but we couldn't send her outside because many people will recognize her. If not for that, we would send her with you instead", he explained lengthily.

"B-bu?", Minato began to protest only to be interrupted by Miya.

"Sahashi Minato, it is difficult to adjust your life so suddenly, but we know we can trust you. That is the most important thing to us; that we can trust you. We will also add another 50k yen to your monthly stipend to account for Yashima's staying with you", Miya coaxed.

Minato turned his head to look at Yashima, who was keeping silent and had her head bowed. Seeing as Yashima wasn't going to say anything to him soon, he looked at Miya instead. "I'm... ahhh...", he faltered. 'How do I explain that I'm a teenager with raging hormones?', Minato asked himself silently. Yashima looked like she was the same age as he was. She was pretty to boot and had a nice figure. Just thinking about Yashima was making him light-headed.

"Kuh... You will be living together, Mina-tan", said Matsu, who was already conversant in Japanese culture. "It will be fine", she said with a wide smile.

"Matsu", Miya said warningly. Turning to Minato she cleared her throat. There was a suspicious, slight reddening on both Miya's cheeks. It was barely discernible. To Minato, she said, "Ah... she will stay with you and live in your world, including all that it entails...", Miya paused, finding it difficult to tell the boy that it was all right if he wanted to... "What I mean is, what will happen, will happen", she ended abruptly and commanded the ship for a glass of water, which suddenly materialized in front of her. She immediately grabbed the glass and drank the contents with relief.

Minato was distracted. He suddenly saw a glass of water appear close to Miya. There was also an implication that he and Yashima... he shook his head. 'It couldn't be that', he thought to himself. But the glass of water appearing like that so suddenly... it was amazing. Confused, all he could answer was, "Ok, I guess". Belatedly, he castigated himself. His mind immediately thought about all those sleepless nights he would have with Yashima sleeping in the same apartment as he was... He was sure he was forgetting something too, but he couldn't quite remember what it was right now.

Miya sighed in relief. "Well, that's it then. Since Musubi took you while you were asleep, you are not wearing the proper clothes. It is day time now. We will give you a change of clothes. After you put them on, Musubi will escort both you and Yashima outside." More formally, she continued, "Thank you Sahashi Minato. What you are doing for us means a lot to all of us. It will decide our future. For that, you have our gratitude."

"Its ok. Please don't mention it", Minato replied.

"**So... do you think it will work out alright?**", **Tsukiumi asked Yume as they watched Minato and Yashima through the monitors**. At the moment, both Minato and Yashima were standing a few hundred meters from the ship when they suddenly disappeared as the teleportation device whisked them to another place.

"I don't think all of us can be wrong in thinking that he is a good kid. Yashima will be fine with him", Yume replied. They were in the command center, Tsukiumi coming in after the meeting had been adjourned.

**Minato and Yashima stood awkwardly together as they waited for the teleportation to take place**. Both of them kept silent, not knowing what to say to one another. Earlier, Musubi gave him a capsule to drink. It was supposed to negate the dizziness and disorientation of teleportation. As Musubi said goodbye, there were a few hints of tears forming along the corners of her eyes. Minato forced himself to remain distant and aloof. It was not because he hated Musubi, rather it was the opposite. He wanted Musubi to come along with him so badly.

The world turned white as the teleportation took place. He didn't feel the dizziness or skin pricks like the first time. It was as if someone turned on the light of the sun inside a small room and then just as suddenly, it was gone.

Minato stood there blinking his eyes to get them accustomed to normal daylight. From what he could see, they were standing on a huge tract of grassland. With the clouds obscuring the sun, it was hard to tell what time of day it was. As his vision got clearer, Minato took in the fact that there was nothing but grassland in all directions. Scratching his head in confusion, he turned to his shy, silent but pretty companion. "Ah, Y-Yashima-san, do-do you have any idea where we are?"

Yashima blushed and kept her head down, embarrassed. With a small voice, she answered, "Ummm... Sahashi-san, Matsu said there is a road here. There are buses that pass by that can take us to Tokyo. The road is that way." Before the meeting, Matsu established a thought link with her and oriented her on Japan, Japanese culture and literature. Without it, she would have been lost. But... "P-please forgive me", Yashima whispered.

"Hmmwha?", Minato screamed as Yashima suddenly embraced him. Unlike Musubi, Yashima's breasts were moderate in size, but breasts were breasts. Even if they were smaller, Minato felt them rather intensely. Just as he was about to try to separate himself from Yashima, the girl suddenly jumped high into the air. Minato screamed as he felt the same sensations he felt that night when Musubi kidnapped him from his futon. He knew it was wrong, but he didn't care. He pressed his face between Yahsima's relatively young breasts as he closed his eyes tightly. It vaguely occurred to him that the alien girl was not wearing a bra, but he was distracted from this inspiring thought by what Yashima was doing. Soon, the ordeal was over. As soon as they reached the road, Yashima immediately let go of an unbalanced Minato, who fell to the ground.

"Oh no! I'm so sorry Minato-san", Yashima exclaimed contritely as she grabbed his arm and hauled him up to his feet. "I'm sorry", she apologised again, bowing her head to hide her blush. She should have made certain that Minato could stand on his own feet before she let him go. Its just that she felt Minato's face pressed against her chest and his nose was poking them. It felt... weird and embarrassing.

"I-its alright, Yashima-san", Minato replied shakily as he valiantly tried to contain his urge to puke. "Th-There should be a waiting shed where we can sit while we wait."

"Er... is that it, Minato-san?", Yashima asked as she pointed to a nearby bus stop.

"Yes it is. Let's walk there so we can sit", Minato replied. As they arrived, Minato took a look at the signs on the shed. If what was written was correct, Minato figured they were in the country sides far from the outskirts of Tokyo. The bus ride would take 6 hours to get to the city. Sighing in defeat, Minato resigned himself to trying to get to know the alien girl who was going to be staying with him. "Oh crap", Minato muttered.

"I-is something wrong Minato-san?", Yashima asked curiously, albeit, prettily.

"Ah.. well you see, my lease contract for the apartment says I can't have any room mates", Minato explained. "I just remembered now. I guess I'll have to talk to the landlord to see if we can change the contract. The rent might be increased, but its okay", he assured her. He wasn't looking forward to talking to the old fart though.

"I'm sorry", Yashima apologized in a small voice. She really didn't know how to talk to a boy. Now she had to live with one. Worse, the boy's lease might be in danger because of her.

Minato sighed. He wasn't blaming her for anything. Maybe she was just too shy? "Yashima-san... look... I... this will be the first time that I will live with a girl other than my sister and mother. So, you know, it's hard for me too", Minato said, trying to make her see that they had something in common. "So, well, I don't mind if you live with me, because it will be nice. Because, well, I've been living alone now for 2 years and... I just want you to know that... your staying with me makes me... uhh... happy", Minato finished lamely.

Yashima shot Minato an astonished look. "You mean you don't hate me?"

"What?", Minato asked, surprised. "Why would I hate you? No, no, no", he hurried to assure her. "I would like it very much if you stayed with me. I mean, I will value your company because I haven't had companionship for some time now."

"I'm sorry", she apologised again. "I don't know how to... to act. Wh-what should I do?", she asked Minato with something akin to desperation.

'God she's cute', he thought to himself. Minato tried to reassure her as best as he could. "Just do what you want and be yourself. If we're staying together, we have to accept each other, I guess", he shrugged.

"If its ok, then I will do as you said", Yashima replied, smiling in spite of her reticence, trying to get over her shame-filled reactions.

"Ah, here comes the bus", Minato stood as he heard the sound of the engine.

Once they were seated side by side, Minato turned to her, determined to make both of them more comfortable with each other. "So... will you tell me about you? I mean, you've known this world for 5,000 years now and I've been in it for only 19. So... if you allow it, I would like to hear you tell stories", he explained to Yashima.

In response, she shyly looked at him through her lashes. "I'm not really 5,000 years old. After the youngest of us was born, we waited a few years for her to grow up then we placed ourselves in suspended animation. Every 500 years, we would wake up and stay awake for no longer than a year. I'm almost as old as you are", she explained with a small smile.

"Oh. Well, they said something about you not aging so I just thought that you...", Minato trailed off, embarrassed. He knew women were sensitive to age.

"Its ok", she replied complacently. "Well, I guess out of all of us, its Miya's age we don't know because she was alive before she brought the ship here. Aside from her, everyone else was born here. Matsu was the first born. Even if she is the oldest among us, she only spent about 24 years out of suspended animation. The rest of the time, she was asleep", she explained easily. For some strange reason, she felt comfortable now. She noticed how Minato was trying to make her comfortable, and she appreciated that a lot. He was also kind to her, explaining to her about the bus and how it worked and also about the other curious things she saw as they made their way Tokyo. Maybe it won't be so hard, after all. That left her with one thing to worry about. The elders had given her specific instructions. It was about that thing that humans did in the dark. She wasn't exactly told not to do it, but she was told not to avoid it either. With that, her nerves started churning as she felt heat creep up her face. She averted her gaze from Minato and tried to concentrate on the scenery.

**A/N: ahhrghh... so many things to write down**. 6,000 words plus plus. have to cut it here. If you're going to complain about the plot not advancing, read Umi no Misaki. 69 chapters of relatively uneventful harem romance, but its a good manga just the same. Anyway, posting this on FF. Too tired to proof.


	9. Chapter 9

Greetings readers! I tried picking up on the second chapter of Promises of Forever, but my fingers refused to type. Next, I tried writing the second chapter of an un-posted bleach fic (Neliel, Kurosaki Isshin), but my fingers still would not type. Yup, that's right. That's why you're reading this.

Re: your reviews Some say they like other characters being featured, some say nay. I say go back to Miya's explanation of why she chose Yashima, and you have the reason. Yashima is in the story because the story calls for her. If it wasn't Yashima, it would be Oriha or another minor character. I used Yashima cause I felt sorry for her in the manga. Such a cruel way to treat ladies... really.

You don't know who Yashima is? You've watched the anime but didn't read the manga at all. There are details in the manga which are missing in anime. Read the manga. It contains the original story. The way its going now, it looks like Sekirei Pure Engagement is going to show a different story than the original manga.

Tidbits from a fictitious world history: Adolf Hitler worshipped Musubi. Because of the nature of his goddess, his fate was changed to a more positive one. There was no world war, but the small wars continued just the same. ^_^ Christianity and Islam never existed, hence, no crusades and no enmity between two major beliefs. Bottom line: no terrorism. ^_^ The biblical God (Judaism as it was millennia ago), well he couldn't be seen, while our gorgeous and flighty aliens were certainly visible. Guess who lost out? ^_^ (Again, this is a work of fiction. Please discard your religious sensibilities. If you insist on labelling me a heretic, I challenge you to stop reading/watching porn.) o.O

**Sahashi Minato stared at his companion seated beside him on the bus**. He wasn't doing it out of rudeness. Rather, he was curious. How could a petite woman like Yashima be given the title Patron of Carpenters. He wanted to ask, but he was afraid of being rude. So the two of them sat together; silently that is, until...

"Sahashi-san", Yashima spoke softly, head bowed and fingers twisting on her lap. "You keep looking at me like that. It makes me nervous", she said with a shaky laugh. "If you have a question, please ask instead."

"Ah. S-sorry. I didn't mean to scare you or anything", Minato said placatingly. "Its just that, well, I-I was wondering how people started calling you the patron of carpenters", he explained sheepishly.

Yahisma lifted her head to gaze at Minato in surprise. A moment later she was stifling giggles.

"I say something funny, Yahsima-san?", Minato asked in confusion.

"N-no, Sasashi-san", Yahima rushed to assure him. "Its just you made me remember when you said that." She paused and cocked her head to the side questioningly. "Do you really want to hear about it?"

"Well, yes but, only if its okay", a still flabbergasted Minato replied.

Yashima turned aside and gazed out the window. Slowly, she began to speak. "Well, I guess it all began a long time ago, before what you now call Europe started to civilize itself. Ummm... At that time, people were living in mud and wattle huts with dried grass used for a roof. All over Europe, people lived this way. Only Greece, Egypt and some isolated villages in the Nordic peninsula had the knowledge to use stone. The people at that time were not precise in their measurements either. So I taught them how. Since I am good at using a hammer, I also helped them build... I just thought that it was better to show them than just teach them. After that, they built a shrine to me", she explained bashfully.

"Ah. And since you also had technology, they really thought of you as gods", Minato replied quietly.

"Well, yes... but not only that", Yashima replied as she turned away from the window to look at Minato from the corner of her eye. "Your earth human bodies and our bodies are basically the same. Its just that with us, we have some abilities that humans don't have. For example, Musubi is stronger than most of us. She can lift this bus with ease. Kazehana can manipulate the wind and make it do things that can cause major disasters... if she wanted to."

"I see...", Minato trailed off.

Yashima bit her lip, unsure of whether to ask the question that had been bugging her since they left the island. Taking a deep breath to gather her courage, she blurted out, "You wanted Musubi to come with you instead of me right? I'm sorry, but Miya..."

"Ah... N-no", a surprised Minato said defensively. "I mean, yes. In all honesty, I wanted it to be her but I don't blame you for what someone else decided. If its you, its fine. I think... with you, I can learn about you and your people. I think, you also need to learn about us. Right?"

Yashima smiled shyly. "Y-yes. Miya said to learn as much as I can. But with Matsu there, she can use the ship's computers and learn everything that needs to be gleaned. I'm just here for the experience of living among humans."

"I see... Then... then I can learn from you and you can learn from me", Minato replied sincerely.

Yashima blushed. "Yes."

The bus ride took another 4 hours to get to Tokyo. As soon as he had shown Yashima in to his second floor apartment, Minato excused himself to try to convince his landlord to change the lease contract to a double occupancy.

**Asama Takehito stood at his doorstep, talking to a young couple looking for room and board**. He was struck by what he saw of the young man. He seemed familiar. As they conversed and he learned his name. It suddenly hit him, who this boy was. He had the same name as Takami. The minute he learned his name, the features of the boy suddenly sharpened. He looked like Minaka, but there was also some of Takami in there. Wasn't it ironic for this boy to end up on his doorstep? After all, he had loved Takami once but she chose this boy's father. If he weren't so busy, he would have laughed at the irony. He certainly wasn't expecting this.

A few minutes ago, he was rushing to finish checking his students' papers for the end of school term. He also had to clean the place up, but there simply wasn't much time. He tried asking his friend, Seo, to help him around the house in return for free meals and board. The guy just proved to be very unreliable and he had to kick him out. A few days ago, he finally began advertising for boarders. Being a university professor at Toudai was prestigious, but it didn't pay well. He needed extra income. He never would have guessed that Takami's son would be his first prospective boarder.

"Hmm, Sahashi Minato is it? What, may I ask, is your occupation?", Takehito said with a friendly, if somewhat familiar attitude.

"Ahh... I do construction work full time, but that's only so I can earn enough to live on until I can get into university", Minato replied honestly. He figured it was no use hiding things from your landlord when it came to finances. Then he remembered. "Oh, but, I won't be working anymore. I have a bank account with enough money in it to live on, and I will be going to school next term", he explained vaguely. He really couldn't say that aliens were financing his life.

"I see. And your companion is?", Takehito asked again.

"Ah... sorry sorry", he bowed in apology. "Please forgive my lack of manners. This is Yashima. We will be rooming together", he explained.

Takehito's brow rose in altitude. "I don't imagine that you two are married now, are you?"

Yashima blushed. "N-no. We are good friends."

Takehito sighed. He couldn't make exceptions, even for Takami's son. "I am sorry, but I do not allow unmarried couples to share a room."

"Oh, well, then maybe we can have two rooms instead of one?", Minato replied. "I just need to know how each room costs so I can see if the budget will fit."

'Something was definitely strange here', Takehito thought. 'An out of school youth with more money than he could spend... maybe Takami struck it rich? Did Takami even know how his son was using his money?' Takehito decided to do his former love a favor. "Young man", he said aloud, "I don't know how rich your mother is, but does she know what you do with the money she is giving you?"

Minato looked at the landlord in horror. There was a frightening aura surrounding the landlord. He wasn't sure too. Maybe his eyes were deceiving him, but he just saw a demonic face rise above the landlord's shoulder. He was so frightened he didn't notice how personal or rude the landlord's words were. He was too busy being scared. For that matter, Yashima backed up a step.

"N-no. I'm not receiving money from my mother. Not while I'm out of school", a desperate Minato replied defensively as he unconsciously grabbed Yashima's hand and squeezed it tight for assurance. 'Wait a minute', Minato thought, 'how does he know that it was my mother sending money?' Ummm... maybe he was being too sensitive about being fatherless. He decided to write it off as coincidence.

"I see", Takehito replied. But he didn't see. Where did the boy get the money? Ah but, so long as he paid his rent, the boys finances were none of his business. He bowed to the boy. "Please excuse my rudeness. I didn't mean to pry into your private matters. Now you said you will think about taking two rooms?", Takehito asked in confirmation. He could hardly believe it. Two rooms being rented out would help him a lot.

"Ah yes, but I need to know how much and maybe if we can take a look at the rooms?", Minato asked politely.

"Yes. Well then, please enter. We will talk about the price when you see the rooms", Takehito replied.

Minato and Yashima followed asTakehito led them through an old but well-maintained house. They climbed to the second floor were the rooms were. When they finally got to see the rooms, Minato could hardly believe how spacious they were. 'This will cost a lot. It might be out of my budget', he thought. Turning to face Takehito, who was standing near the door, he asked the dreaded question. "How much is it?"

"The rent is 70k yen a month. The rent also includes meals. But I am short on help. You see, aside from maintaining this house, I also teach. I simply don't have enough time to do everything every single day. So I am offering you a reduction in rent if you will agree to help in cleaning, cooking and doing laundry. If you accept, I will reduce your rent to 50k yen a month", Takehito explained.

Minato's eyes almost bugged out of his eyes. The original price was more than fair; but the second offer was far better. Since he didn't have to work, he could do the housework, but... "I can't cook", Minato said regretfully.

Yashima smiled shyly. "The house is really nice, Sahashi-san. I can do the cooking."

Minato gaped at the alien disbelievingly; then... 'What am I thinking', Minato thought silently. 'If she can build houses for primitive people, then she certainly can cook.' Deciding to rehabilitate his opinion on aliens later, Minato brought his attention back to renting a room or two. "Do you like the room Yashima-san?", Minato asked.

Yashima nodded. "Its good."

'Yashima-san eh?', thought Takehito. 'So maybe I was wrong in thinking that they were lovers.' Still, he wouldn't allow them into the same room. They'd have to take a room each if they wanted to stay. He turned his attention to Minato who was speaking to him.

"If all the other rooms are this spacious, then we'll each take 1 room with the condition that we will help with cleaning, cooking and doing the laundry", Minato spoke confidently. 'What a change having money can bring to someone', he observed silently.

"Well, if you have decided, then let us go to my office so we can sign the lease", a surprised Takehito said in reply to Minato's quick decision.

Down in Takehito's office, Minato decided to ask Takehito about his teaching. After all, he needed advice as he was entering college. "Takehito-san, didn't you say that you were a teacher?"

Takehito looked up from the contract he was preparing. "Yes, I did."

"Well, you see, I am entering Toudai next term and...", Minato never got to finish his explanation.

"Toudai?", a surprised Takehito exclaimed. "You're a Toudai student? I teach there. What college are you entering?", he asked excitedly.

"I really don't know. I was thinking of passing all the required subjects for the majors before making a decision", Minato explained lamely.

"Ah well, if you are interested in sciences, I am a professor in the college of biology", Takehito said then stopped abruptly. He couldn't very well tell the boy about Minaka now, could he? As far as he knew, Minaka knew of his children's existence but refused to acknowledge them. Which meant that Minaka's existence was likewise hidden from his children... maybe. But... "You know", he said aloud. "There was a woman professor in the college of pharmacy. Her name was Sahashi Takami", Takehito spoke softly, gauging Minato's reaction.

Minato looked at Takehito with rounded eyes. "My mother graduated in that school. She has a degree in pharmacy", he replied, now as excited as Takehito; but then he frowned. "But... if she was a teacher, she never told us. She works as an HE operator in constructions sites."

"I see", Takehito muttered sadly. 'That damned Minaka', he cursed his friend in bitter silence. 'If only he didn't play around with Takami, this boy would be calling me father right now.' Sighing in regret, he pushed the finished forms at Minato. "Sign those forms, then we can formalize your rent. Also, because I think your mother was one of my old friends, you don't have to pay any deposit."

Minato gazed at Takehito in gratitude. "Thank you. My mother doesn't have too many friends. I'm sure she'd be happy to hear about you."

'Or maybe not', thought Takehito. 'Not when she obviously changed her lifestyle drastically. She doesn't want to remember about the old times. Unfortunately for me, I was part of those times.'

After Minato and Yashima had gone, Takehito suddenly found himself disturbed by something... Yashima. A lot of parents named their children after gods and goddesses. But back when he, Minaka and Takami were doing that research paper, he remembered having to go through 50 volumes of religious material. Those materials included pictures... Strange enough, Minato's Yahsima looked like Yashima the goddess. Or maybe he was just imagining it. It was a long time ago, after all. Of course, he wouldn't miss the mother goddess Miya if he saw her. He had her huge portrait transferred to his bedroom.

**Before they could transfer to Izumo Inn, Minato had to take care of admission procedures in Toudai**. It took him a few days to complete the requirements. During his free time, he would take Yashima out and around Tokyo. With what money they could spare, they bought some furniture for both their rooms and clothes for Yashima to wear. He even called his mother, happy that he was going to tell her good news. "Mom! I passed! I'm entering Toudai!", he said excitedly to his cell phone. He was lying about the passing part, but his mother didn't have to know that.

"You're not just pulling my leg are you, my son?", Sahashi Takami asked warily. "Are you just trying to avoid getting shouted at for the third time?"

Obviously, his own mother didn't trust him. "No mom. I'm not joking. I really got accepted", at least he wasn't lying this time. "I've already submitted all the requirements. I start next term."

Silence... "I see. I suppose I should visit a shrine or temple to thank the gods. Oh! And I should send you some money now too", Sahashi Takami replied, finally getting excited that his son had indeed managed to enter the same university she graduated from.

'Well you really should thank the gods because they arranged the whole thing', thought Minato humorously. To his mother, he said, "Yes. You should thank the gods", was all he could say.

"Oh. I also forgot to mention, Yukari arrived there a week ago. She was looking for you. Where were you? I hope you weren't spending all your time in East Shinjuku (red light district) at night", Takami scolded his son.

"Mom! I'm not that useless a person", Minato protested. "I was working. For the last two years, I was working. I have saved some money so I can make it on my own", he half-lied to his mom.

"Oh. Then its good to know that you can be responsible. It is good that you have shown responsibility, Minato, because I am handing over responsibility of your sister to you while she's there", Takami happily dropped that bombshell.

"Wh-What! Why do I have to? She's old enough to...", Minato's protest got interrupted by his irritated mother.

"Yukari was always headstrong. But I was never bothered by it because I knew you were watching her", Takami explained. "Now I want to have that same feeling of confidence that Yukari will be safe because you are with her. Right now, she is with a friend. Call her so you can bring her to where you're staying."

There were a few things Minato couldn't afford. One of them was paying for a third room for his sister. "Mom! I can't possibly pay for her room", he protested again.

"Who says you'll be paying? Thanks to your saving money, I can increase her allowance so that she can be responsible for herself", Takami retorted.

Minato sighed. His mom had decided. Not even the bull-headed Yukari could change mom's mind when it was made up. "Oh by the way mom. I met someone. His name is Asama Takehito. He says you were students and teachers together at Toudai."

Silence... then, "What things did he tell you?", Takami asked warily.

"Huh? Nothing I guess. Come to think of it. He didn't say much. Just that you were both students and teachers. Why?", Minato asked, curious to know about the connection between his mother and the landlord of Izumo Inn.

"Ah, well you see, he wanted us to be more than friends, but I rejected him", Takami explained hesitantly. Some things were still painful. "Try not to bring this up too much with him. It might still hurt him, do you understand Minato?"

"Yes mom", he replied.

"Good. Now call Yukari. She's very worried about you", Takami admonished.

"Ok. I will", Minato agreed and cut the connection.

Takami sighed in relief. Somehow, the secret was still a secret. Takehito had kept her secret. Many times she had wished it had been Takehito, but she ended up with Minaka instead. Twice. Maybe it was in the Sahashi genes to fail at something in their lives twice? As for Yukari... Minato was a responsible person. She trusted that part of him. Yukari would be safe.

"**Onii-chan! Where the hell have you been? Mom and I were worried sick about you", Yukari yelled at Minato over the phone**.

"I needed to take a vacation. I'm entering college soon", Minato lied in his explanation. He seemed to be doing a lot of that nowadays.

"You passed?", she shrieked excitedly. "I can't believe it. We're going to the same school at the same time", she shrieked some more. Yukari loved her brother. There was nothing more pleasurable than going to the same school as him... not that going to school was a pleasure, but because her brother was going to be there too, it would be bearable. That, plus she could tease her brother and make him blush like crazy.

Unaware of her sister's brother complex, Minato had no idea how difficult his future would be when he said, "Mom said you'll be staying with me. Tell me where you are so I can help you carry your things."

"She did?", she shrieked again excitedly, thoughts of what she could do to her hapless brother floating in her mind.

"Yes she did. So give me your address now and I'll come to pick you up", Minato ordered.

**Yashima was at the inn where Minato and her would be staying. **She was waiting for Minato to come back with his sister, who would be staying here as well. Takehito the landlord-san was surprised when Minato told him about this, but he seemed to have no objections and immediately went to his office to prepare another contract. The past few days, Minato had guided her around Tokyo when he wasn't too busy. He showed her the safer places to go to and warned her about places where she shouldn't go to alone, especially at night.

So far, Minato was turning out to be a nice person. He was even nicer than some of her sisters in the ship. He always treated her right and respected her privacy. When they finally got to shopping for furniture, Yashima was confident she could get along with the human. She was also happy that Musubi had chosen a good person. Yashima hoped that she too could find a good person. As likeable as Minato was, he just didn't seem right for her. There was a missing... element. It was something that Yume called love. Of course, none of them on that ship had experience with love, but instinctively, she knew that Minato wasn't meant for her.

Yashima went around the room, wiping off dust and sweeping the floors. She was getting this room ready for Minato's sister. She hoped that Yukari was as good a person as Minato was. It was very convenient. She needed to be around people because of what she was tasked to do. Now there were going to be 4 of them living in this inn.

There was only one problem though. She kept in touch with the ship. When the commanders found out who the landlord was, she was ordered to stay as far from him as possible. He, they said, was probably very familiar with religion. It would be a disaster if he took too much notice of Yashima. So she kept to her room most of the time. She only went out if Minato went out. But she did go out alone sometimes. Mostly, she did routine stuff like buying food. Every time she went, she always looked at the sky. It was so pretty. She'd seen it before, but not so much as she was getting to see it now. She looked at the people walking to and fro. Unlike her, they took things for granted. 'Well, that makes them no different from us. In the ship, we take each other for granted too', she thought to herself. 'Maybe we're not so different after all.'

To be continued...

Sorry for having to cut off here. I could have chosen to wait longer and add more to this chapter but I didn't want to keep you waiting. Anyway, work has caught up with me (it comes in spurts, just like some other things come) er... where was I? Oh yeah. Work caught up with me. Don't know when I'd be to continue, but the hiatus won't last more than a month. I won't pinky promise though.


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